The End of You and Me
by icy roses
Summary: DISCONTINUED When Percy and Annabeth got married, things were perfect. Eight years later, everything has gone wrong. When complications arise among the Olympians, Percy and Annabeth are dragged in headfirst with implications they cannot begin to imagine.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** This is going to be a novella. Kioko bullied me into it, so here it is. The story is loosely in response to the prompts at the Percy Jackson battle community: _Percy/Annabeth, don't let the door hit you on the way out_ and _Percy/Annabeth, hope is all we have_. Look on my profile for more information. Really, this is just a fic I've been cooking up in my head for a long time. I hope to update at least once every two weeks (usually once a week), but be aware that I'm really bad at keeping my goals. Obviously, the story is Percy/Annabeth, and YES I used Cassie's name again. In my world, she is canon. Please enjoy.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Percy Jackson.

* * *

**Chapter 1**

Percy put the papers in front of him and stared at them as if he could will them to disappear. This was one problem he couldn't fix with Riptide. This was one problem he couldn't figure out how to fix. It _pissed_ him off. There was nobody in the apartment, so he picked up a plastic cup and threw it at the wall. It made a loud clunk and fell to the floor intact. It left a tiny dent. He would have to pay for that. Wasn't throwing things supposed to give people some satisfaction? He still felt as if angry little ants were crawling under his skin.

He glanced at the handful of pens in the cup on the coffee table. He couldn't make himself go get one. If he put his signature on that bottom line, that was it. It meant he was really calling it quits. It meant everything he had worked for since he was twelve years old was a total waste.

She said something a long time ago that stuck with him, particularly right now. It seemed so ironic. They thought they could trump the statistics. They had beaten every Titan in the book, hadn't they? It turned out beating monsters wasn't the same thing as beating real life. Real life was harder, and real life didn't go away after you solved one thing. You woke up every day, and you had to work at it every day.

"Fifty percent of marriages end in divorce." She said it before they got married. "Do you think we can beat those odds?" she asked him then.

They were young and in love. Everything was easy. "Yeah," he told her. "I promise we will."

The stupid cuckoo clock on the wall struck six. It made the most obnoxious dings. He wanted to strike it down from its perch. "Damn it, Annabeth," he said out loud. "Why did we have to be in the wrong half of the fifty percent?" This was one more thing she was going to hold against him. Promises could be broken, and he broke the most important one.

He ran a hand through his hair. But it wasn't like _he_ was the one who filed for divorce. She served him the papers. She had cried when he proposed. She didn't when she handed him the packet. "Sign them, please," she had said, adding "please" as almost an afterthought. They never spoke so formally, asked please and thank you. Those things were a given. She never said "please" to him their entire marriage, except in the context of "please don't die while slaying that monster." He wondered what changed so much that they talked as if they were strangers.

As if he wasn't the only person who knew that carrot cake was her least favorite food, and she couldn't eat it without puking. Or that she cried the whole night after her dad got married to her stepmother. Or that she secretly wanted to be an only child so badly it was part of the reason she ran away. Or that her favorite scent was pumpkin pie. Or that she knew how to play classical piano. A million different things only he knew about her. He knew her best. The only thing he didn't know was how to save this marriage. And that was the only thing he needed to know at this moment.

His cell phone rang discordantly. He fished it out of his pocket and looked at the screen. The call was from Annabeth. Why would she be calling him? He couldn't decide whether to pick it up or not. What if she was only calling to yell at him? It rang five times, almost to the end of the thread, before he picked up. "Hello?"

"Dad_dy_." The voice on the other line was his daughter's.

"Yeah, sweetie?"

"When are you coming home?" The wheedling tone almost made him cry, more than the divorce papers in front of him. He blinked away the tears he never would have shed for anyone else. There was a rustling sound from the other side, maybe whispering. Maybe Annabeth telling their daughter that their home wasn't Daddy's anymore. That Daddy was moving away for good. "I mean," his daughter amended, "when can I visit?"

So Annabeth was there. Of course she was. Cassie was calling from Annabeth's phone.

"Soon," he told her. "Soon. This weekend?"

"That's in—four days! I want to see you _now_."

"Daddy has to work. He wouldn't be able to play with you until then," he said.

"Then, then, why don't you come home? We can play here."

"I can't." There was no way he could explain this situation to a six-year-old, no less his own. Her mother would be better with this. Annabeth, no matter what else could be said about her, was the best mother.

"_Why?_"

Why, indeed? He wished he could answer the question for himself. He wished he could tell her he was coming home. For a wild moment, he imagined saying he was moving back into the phone, packing up all his stuff, and showing up at the front doorstep—what used to be his front doorstep. Annabeth wouldn't turn him away if he stood at the door when she opened it. Well, maybe she would. She certainly had no problem ordering him out in the first place. Her stubbornness and no-nonsense attitude had been charming when it wasn't directed toward him.

He sighed into the phone. It made a crackling noise. "Daddy?"

"Mommy will drive you here this weekend, okay? You can call me every night until then."

Cassie snuffled a little bit. "Okay," she whispered. "'Bye, Daddy. I miss you."

"I miss you too—"

"Percy?"

He sat up straighter. Cassie had handed the phone to her mother. His wife—still his wife until he penned his signature, anyway. Her voice made his palms sweat. There was no trace of anything in the voice. She was pretty good at masking her feelings. When she didn't want you to know how she felt, you wouldn't know. If they were face-to-face, he felt sure he would be able to know whether or not she really wanted this. Maybe that's why she would only talk to him on the phone.

"Mm hmm?" He wasn't the best at shielding his emotions himself. He coughed to straighten out the lump in his throat from talking to Cassie.

"Have you signed the papers yet?"

He didn't answer.

"You have to sign them by next week. Please."

"Stop using the word, _please_," he snapped.

She fell silent on the other side. He couldn't even hear her breathe. Did she hang up? That would be just great. He couldn't even have a civil conversation with her anymore.

"Just sign them, Percy. Let's just get this over with as soon as possible. My lawyer—"

_I don't want to talk about it,_ he thought. _Can we talk about anything else? My lawyer, your lawyer, the papers, our daughter, custody, alimony, I'm so sick of this whole thing. Can we talk about the weather? The baseball game? Cassie's grades, gods, I don't fucking care. Anything. _He listened to the traffic outside his window, the tick-tock of the cuckoo clock. He tapped his fingers on the desk. With a steady palm, he pushed the papers all the way to the edge until they scattered like feathers to the ground. He would have to put them back in order later. He didn't care. They could stay that way until Friday when she drove Cassie over. Chances were, Annabeth wouldn't even bother to step through the door. She'd drop Cassie off and leave, so the divorce papers would lay in a disorganized mess on the cold kitchen tiles until a lawyer called and made him pick them up.

"I've got to go now," she said.

"Okay," he answered woodenly.

There was an awkward pause. "I'll—talk to you later," she said finally. "I'm—I'm sorry." The line went dead before he could respond with, _Me too,_ or _I'm not_, or _Goodbye, Annabeth._

He didn't like saying goodbye. He suspected she didn't like it either.

What the hell was the sorry for? He really wanted to ask. Was she sorry that she had to go? That they were getting a divorce? Or was she sorry that they had ever gotten married in the first place, spent half their lives together, and had a kid, a beautiful girl who was undeniable evidence that they'd once loved each other? He couldn't decide.

* * *

A/N: Reviews are appreciated.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **So here it is, Chapter 2. I'm really excited for this project, and pleasantly surprised that people seem to be receiving a divorce fic so well. You'll just have to see how it all turns out. My only request is that you tell me if it's going OOC. I have the problem of trying to imagine how a twenty-nine-year-old Percy or Annabeth would behave and the added problem of trying to imagine how they'd behave during divorce proceedings. Just to give you a little something to look forward to, old characters _will_ be making appearances in this fic. Also, something I forgot to mention in the first chapter: this story is rated T for language if you haven't already figured that out.

* * *

**Chapter 2**

The week lasted forever. Percy went to work in a daze every day, came back to his dingy apartment, and ordered pizza. He could avoid thinking about the other things he missed about living in a nice flat with his family, but the lack of real food reminded him daily how much he missed gourmet cooking. He could barely make a bowl of cereal without serious mishaps. The stove? Forget about it. It was only because he had the ability to hose down a fire before the alarm set off that he even attempted to turn it on, ever.

And now, he had to dress himself too. Some of the weird looks he got at work probably involved his sudden incapability of wearing matching clothes. He got the distinct impression that women at his workplace could tell he was having problems with his wife just by glancing at his tie every morning. He hadn't broken the news he was getting a divorce. For one, lawyers were notoriously soulless about things, and the first thing they'd do would be to recommend a good divorce lawyer. Not even counseling or "Hey, I'm sorry about that." Lawyers were pretty jaded people. He never imagined he'd become one of them.

_Environmental law_, he corrected. He was saving the environment and stuff. Not suing people over hot coffee or defending murderers. All the same, it had involved three grueling years of law school and so much reading that his dyslexia wrote him hate mail every night.

Anyway, Annabeth was pretty much the reason he had even gotten through law school without dropping out, going insane, or committing suicide. She patiently helped him through the reading, the notes, and the endless studying. His second year, she had gotten pregnant, which had potentially been the least convenient time he could imagine, but it had given him the motivation to finish, at least. He couldn't be a hobo for the arrival of his kid.

It was funny that a lawyer was living in such a dump of a place. If he wanted, he could've afforded better, but inside, he secretly hoped he wouldn't be living here for long. That Annabeth would forgive him and let him come home. It was a secret hope he didn't even dare think about, in case it blew up in his face. He didn't dare hope for anything at this point, not with the divorce papers still scattered on the floor. No, he hadn't bothered to pick them up.

Mostly, he was just exhausted. The briefs this week were long and tedious, and he just _did not care_ about them. He munched on a slice of pizza, careful to keep his greasy fingers off the actual paper. "In the circumstance of…" he read out loud to make the information sink into his head better. He couldn't recall what the suit was about in the first place. Frustrated, he cast the folder aside and took a swig of Dr. Pepper to clear his head.

He needed a day off.

…o…

The next day at work, he found just how much the world was invested in making him die prematurely of exhaustion. At about one in the afternoon, right was he was struggling through his early afternoon food comatose, there was a sharp knock. Disoriented, he looked up at the door. The entire front wall of his office was thick glass, and nobody stood out there. Nobody even glanced at him as they walked by.

Knock, knock.

He turned around and found a flying horse rapping the windowpane smartly with his hoof. He stared for a second before scrambling over in a desperate attempt to cover the animal with his body. It wasn't working. He popped open the window. "What the hell, Blackjack, people are going to see you! I'm at _work_. You can't just fly through Manhattan in broad daylight and casually harass me at my office!"

The pegasus flapped its wings, affronted. "Is that the way to greet an old friend? I haven't seen you for years! Also, don't forget the Mist. None of them are going to even catch a whiff of me. I promise." He neighed. "Well, you're looking older. Got any sugar cubes? I've been flying all day on an empty stomach. I'm starving."

Percy almost snorted at how quickly the conversation digressed back to food. "Sorry, buddy. I don't carry a stash of sugar cubes in my cabinet. So, how are you doing?"

"Fine, boss, fine. But can we get on with the small talk on the way? They need you in the ocean again. I don't know; some kind of infestation with the sea serpents. It's been a recurring thing lately."

He smacked his forehead. "Oh, man. Isn't there someone else on call for stuff like this? Can't you see I'm busy lawyering here? I'm on deadline." This was the fourth time he'd been called this month. Well, at least he wouldn't have to explain it to Annabeth this time. Since he'd moved out, they'd managed to be remarkably uninvolved with each other's schedules.

"What's more important? Your lawyer stuff or the fact that the ocean might be boiling over fifty miles out, hmm? Those things will start attacking ships soon, and you'll be seeing disappearances in the newspaper," Blackjack said, shuffling midair.

"I'm coming," he grumbled. "I'll call in sick later."

"That's the spirit!"

Percy took off his jacket. Somehow, he managed to crawl out the window and swing onto Blackjack's back. "Let's go." They whistled high into the sky, away from his bland office building, and into the world where the Olympians still reigned and squabbled. The sky shimmered a richer blue. He blinked a few times and felt more alive. Slipping back into demigod mode was so easy. Here, he didn't have to hide what he was.

"Nice outfit, boss," said Blackjack.

"Hey, shut up. I can't control what I have to wear." He loosened the tie. "It beats wearing armor, any day. That invulnerability thing still comes in handy. Should be a piece of cake, right? Just a nuisance."

Blackjack didn't answer.

"Right?" he hedged.

"Something is up. I can smell it in the air, feel it in my mane. Trouble is stirring."

Percy felt a familiar shiver down his spine. "Kronos? That was only thirteen years ago. He can't have come back that fast."

"It's not him. Something else." He seemed uncomfortable talking about it, so he shifted gears. "They're expanding Camp Half-Blood too, you know. It's getting pretty tight, with all of the new demigods. They're having problems staffing the place. The gods haven't stopped having kids. But now that they're all recognized, we have an overabundance of godly aura, not to mention egotistical kids who can't wait to be put on quests. They're causing all kinds of problems in the real world, so Chiron's looking to keep all of them as year-rounders. But that's not gonna work either, because they can't handle so many kids all the time. It's definitely an issue. Plus, the gods aren't feeling too comfortable with so many demigods running around. The wives are mad at the husbands and vice-versa for so many flings with humans, and none of them are too psyched about a bunch of rowdy teenagers with extra powers. They're thinking about making another pact."

"Because the last one worked out so well."

"Hey, it was better than nothing."

The information bothered Percy. It was as if the wish he made those years ago had backfired. _I wished all the children would be claimed, not for the gods to go reproductively crazy,_ he reminded himself. "One problem at a time," he told Blackjack. "Let's get this done."

…o…

Percy collapsed on his couch, after rummaging through his kitchen and finding half a sack of granulated sugar and handing the entire thing to Blackjack. It probably wasn't the best of ideas, but it was all he had. Unless Blackjack was okay with eating empty pizza boxes.

He wanted to sleep for the rest of the weekend. He checked his watch. Five o'clock. Cassie would be coming over in three hours. It was so unfair. Here he was a twenty-nine-year-old man, and every time there was a disturbance within a hundred mile radius, he was still the one to call. Didn't they have up and coming heroes for this? Oh, right. None of them were well-trained enough. Camp Half-Blood evidently had better liability rules now about not getting _so many_ of the trainees knocked off before their sixteenth birthday. _That would've been super convenient in my day._ He closed his eyes and groaned. _Gods. "In my day?" What am I, forty-nine going on fifty? I need a nap._

His cell phone vibrated on the table. Annabeth's number. Cassie wouldn't be calling him at this time. She would be doing her homework. Annabeth was very strict about Cassie getting her homework done before going off to play. Most likely, it was Annabeth calling to say she couldn't bring their daughter over, or she was going to be late, or maybe she just wanted to berate him about signing the papers again.

He screened the call.

…o…

He was running. He couldn't quite remember why it was important or what he was running towards, but he knew he had to run. He pushed off hard with each step. The ground beneath his feet was sand. It sank and made a swishing sound. He scattered the grains everywhere. The sun was setting on the beach. The ocean sparkled with orange and peach like a Monet painting.

Suddenly, something swallowed up the sun at the edge of the horizon. Everything plunged into darkness. Real darkness, the kind so deep that you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. Percy tripped and fell on his hands and knees. "What's going on?" he cried. It was strange. It sounded as if his voice echoed in the infinite blackness. But where was he? What was his voice bouncing off of?

He heard a mumble, distinctly feminine, surrounding him. She whispered something he couldn't quite make out. "Who are you?" he asked. She kept going, oblivious to him. The darkness frustrated him, made him want to claw out his eyes. "What's going on?"

"Night has fallen."

Before he knew what was going on, he was drowning. He had only experienced the sensation twice before in his life, but he remembered what it felt like. He wasn't drowning on water, though. It felt as though the thickness of the dark had stuffed itself down his throat, filling up the space where air should've gone. He choked and sputtered. His head burned, and he knew he was going to black out in a few seconds. But what was blacking out when he was already in the dark?

He was going to die. He felt it. He couldn't escape this hidden foe.

…o…

Percy jolted awake out of his impromptu nap. Someone was pounding at the door. It took him a few moments to re-immerse himself into reality. He rubbed at his eyes. "What?" he called out crabbily. He checked the cuckoo clock hanging on the wall. Six o'clock. It couldn't possibly be Cassie. For one, she didn't have such strong fists.

He dragged himself over to the door and opened it. He took a step back in surprise. "Annabeth?"

She stood there in a sharp black business skirt suit, her curly hair swept back into a ponytail. She was alone. And she was trembling, hiccupping madly. It looked like she had been crying for the good part of the hour. He didn't know what to say. "Where's Cassie?"

Annabeth started sobbing violently again. "I c—can't find her."

The air rushed out of his lungs in a whoosh. "What? What do you mean, I mean, what do you mean you can't find her?" he asked, his words rushing together. He grabbed her cold hand and pulled her inside, made her sit down on the couch. "Annabeth. Tell me how you lost her."

She was wailing. "I didn't lose her; I just can't find her. She disappeared, she wasn't there when I came home. I called you, but you didn't pick up. Oh gods, Percy, what are we supposed to be? I'm—I'm—" She couldn't even finish her sentence before dissolving into a mess of unintelligible noises.

His thoughts whirled together until he couldn't pick out a solitary rational course of action, but in his core, he concentrated on one thing. He would find her, if he had to go to the ends of the earth. He had before. He would do it again.

He cursed under his breath. How could he comfort Annabeth? She looked as if she might go into cardiac arrest from the violence of her shaking. His head spun with the image of Cassie right in the middle. He'd talked on the phone with her only last night. He told her a bedtime story. He blew her a kiss over the phone. _Where could she have gone?_

"Look, don't cry. We're—we're going to figure this out," he told her, his own heart contracting with fear.

She put her head on his shoulder. "Okay," she whispered.

* * *

**A/N:** Review, please. What do you think?


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** I am thoroughly unhappy with this chapter. But I don't think anything I do to it will make me more happy, so I'm going to let it free into the world. Hopefully the next chapter is better. Thanks for all of the interest, guys.

* * *

**Chapter 3**

They called the police. Percy let Annabeth into his bathroom so she could pull herself together for their arrival. He paced about the length of the short room in a state of catatonic shock. It was all he could do to not let his imagination run into darker corners. _She's fine_, he repeated. _She'll be okay. I'll find her._ He wanted to go now, but he thought they should file a police report first.

"Do you think it has something to do with—you know," he said, gesturing vaguely, "the gods?"

She didn't answer.

It wouldn't make sense, he reasoned. Since The Great Rebellion thirteen years ago, monsters had stopped specifically targeting him. Maybe they had some Zen sense of self-preservation after all. He still took care of them on a weekly basis—you'd be surprised how many crop up every couple of days—but he went looking for them, not the other way around. He felt he was doing a service to the younger demigods, who wouldn't have to struggle through childhood the way Luke, Thalia, and Annabeth did.

As for Cassie, she didn't even know the half of it. She was six, and Annabeth flat out refused to explain the mythological world to her. They'd talked about it a hundred times at least.

"We can wait until she's older," Annabeth would say. "The more she knows, the stronger her aura is. I don't want her having to deal with knowing this whole complicated situation at her age."

"Who knows if she'll even be a problem? What do you even call the child of two demigods?"

"I don't know," she said distractedly. "Are godly powers genetically transferable after the first generation? I mean, especially since the gods technically don't have any DNA…"

"Um."

And so it went. The topic had been pushed off numerous times until it pretty much became the unspoken consensus that they would tell her when she got closer to Camp Half-Blood age. It hadn't seemed to pose a problem before. Still, he couldn't decide what terrified him more, the idea that she had suddenly become a target for monsters or that a mortal kidnapper had gotten to her. He didn't know how to deal with the latter. He could fight his way out of a Titan army, but he couldn't bear to wait for the police to get forensic leads.

He ruled out her running away or getting lost. Cassie was a very sensible girl, even at six. She was a New Yorker. She got off the school bus and went directly home. They had already phoned the bus driver, and he said he saw her walk in the front door. What else was there to say? She had made it home. She didn't have permission to leave until Annabeth got back from work. So it must have happened at home.

A pair of police officers came in, bearing clipboards and looking fierce. Annabeth emerged from the bathroom. Her eyes were still red, but she looked much better. They sat on the couch as if entertaining guests, except everyone was tense and miserable.

"Name."

"Cassandra Ann Jackson."

"Physical description."

"Six years old, green eyes, brown hair, three foot five, forty-five pounds. She was wearing jeans and a pink t-shirt when she disappeared."

One of the officers wrote everything down furiously on his yellow paper pad. The other one cracked a painful smile and offered some kind of reassurance for them that clearly went in one ear and out the other. Annabeth stared past the officer, almost like he was hiding Cassie behind him.

"You mean she was alone when she disappeared?"

Annabeth shivered. "Yes. There is a half an hour overlap to when she gets home to when I do. She was gone within that time."

"Excuse me, ma'am, but you're not supposed to leave young children at home by themselves."

She exchanged a look with Percy. If he hadn't moved out, he would've been there. He usually picked her up from school after work, since he got out earlier. She had been trying to work something out since then, but they hadn't quite settled it yet. They didn't want to get into those nitty-gritty details now. He spoke up. "It's not a usual thing, officer."

"Well, it only takes one moment of neglect for a crime to occur."

They sat in stunned silence. Percy felt like a bug pinned on a board, being examined for guilt. And like the way taking a lie detector test made you all jittery and nervous, the police officer's hard eyes made the guilt lump up inside him like kidney stones. Faintly, he remembered some statistic about how ninety-nine percent of kidnappings had parental involvement. _But that's not us,_ he thought fiercely. _We're not a part of that ninety-nine percent._ He thought of Cassie's eyes, a mirror image of his, staring through the peephole of the door.

The other cop tried to soften the impact. "What he means is, we want to take all things into consideration. We want to proceed carefully. This looks like an abduction case, but we're also going to have to put a note down for possible negligence." He twiddled his thumbs awkwardly.

"Yes?" Percy asked sharply. He put an arm around Annabeth. This was ridiculous. He thought of the way Cassie shuffled her children's size twelve feet while waiting on the sidewalk for him to pick her up after school. He blinked. What odd details he recalled at a time like this.

"We may have to regard you as persons of interest in the case."

"What? You think we're suspects?" He stood up, blood singing in his veins.

"It's only a precaution, I assure you."

"We had nothing to do with this! Why would we alert the police if we kidnapped our own daughter?" He couldn't deal with this. Wouldn't.

"Please, sir, be quiet. Being a person of interest doesn't indicate guilt."

This was quickly spiraling into a worst-case scenario nightmare. "Yeah, but is it routine for you to name parents as 'persons of interest' or whatever you call it? It means you think we were somehow involved." He thought of the way Cassie clung to his leg as he dragged her across the room, her high laughter filling the air. The room was so quiet now.

"It only means your involvement was possible. Nothing is proven. We only want to do serious investigating."

Annabeth finally stood up too. Her face was bright red. "Serious investigating, my ass. You should be trying to find my daughter, not in here trying to incriminate us during preliminary questioning!" Percy could see the muscle of her jaw twitching. He realized they were both standing over the officers, and he had his fist raised as if he was about to bring it down over one of their heads like a gavel. Annabeth blinked beside him. They both sat back down.

"Yes," said the hard-voiced one, "Anyway, we would recommend you stay here and not go anywhere for a few days while we initiate the search. As persons of interest, it would not be the best idea to go wandering about the city."

"On house arrest?" Annabeth asked incredulously.

"It's only a suggestion," the other one said.

"Okay, goodbye," said Percy. "You can leave now." His head was pounding, and if they didn't leave in the next two seconds, he was going to throw a fit that would probably get him put in jail.

After the door clicked shut, he sank back into the couch. "What the hell just happened?"

…o…

He lay there, staring at the shadowed ceiling. He let Annabeth sleep in the bedroom, and he took the sunken sofa. It looked like she needed the sleep. And it wasn't as if he could get anywhere near dream land. The very idea of sleep sounded revolting. His skin itched. What he really wanted to do was go out and search for Cassie himself, but he was on fucking _house arrest_.

It was but a minor setback.

There was no way he was going to stay here for the entire night. He would go crazy. He pulled aside the wool blanket and rubbed his eyes. Rummaging through the pile of clothes in the laundry room, he pulled out a presumably clean pair of socks. In the kitchen, he hastily scrawled a note and left on the countertop, telling Annabeth to stay put. He didn't put where he was going. If the cops came asking, which he was sure they would, she could show them the note, and it would clear her of any accusations of being an accomplice.

He thought about climbing through the window, but he lived on the fifth story. If he fell, would it break his bones? He didn't know if the invulnerability covered that. It would be too hard to leave through the front door. Annabeth was an unbelievably light sleeper, and he was convinced she had superhuman hearing too. She would know in half a second if the front door opened. And then she'd be on his case. Sure, he risked getting upgraded from a "person of interest" to a flat out suspect, but that was the least of the things that worried him.

While he was debating what to do, the bedroom door opened. Annabeth came out completely dressed—in his clothes. She blushed when she saw him staring. "Look, I'm sorry. I didn't want to go out in business wear."

"What do you mean, going out? Just where do you think you're going?" he demanded in increasing amazement.

She scoffed. "Oh, like you weren't thinking the exact same thing." She pointed at his shoes. "You're about to sneak off without me." Marching over to the countertop, she whipped up the note he had left her. "Aha! And what is this?"

"Okay, fine, you win! Jeez. I wasn't going to stay cooped up in here. But—you have to stay. If we're both gone, it's going to look like we're criminals on the run. You have to fend off the questions."

"Why do I have to do it? Why don't you?"

"Because—"

"Don't even bother answering, because I'm coming too," she said, ripping the note into pieces and dropping them into the garbage can. "It's not like we haven't been chased by authorities across the country before."

She had a point.

Annabeth had taken great pains to stay out of the way of immortal problems. It seemed like they had rolled onto her doorstep anyway. No matter what, she would always be a daughter of Athena. "You think this has something to do with the gods, don't you?"

"So what if I do?" she said defensively. "We're not exactly the kind of people who are good at laying low. Plus, I've been having some weird dreams lately." She took a deep breath. "I may not be good at chasing down kidnappers, but I damn well know how to kill a monster and get some answers. So. My car or yours?"

He pulled open the door. "I think I have a better idea."

* * *

**A/N:** Reviews are always a plus.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: **It's late, but I know you're going to forgive me because it's a lot longer, right? Thanks for the interest so far. Just to be clear, I don't really know where this is going myself. Hopefully, it's going somewhere, because I have proven pretty terrible at planning. Also, I don't have the actual PJO books with me at college, which is causing a bit of a problem. The only one I have access to is BotL, and that's only because I've been secretly stealing it off my roommate's shelf when she's not here. Shhh, don't tell...

* * *

**Chapter 4**

Percy decided there was nothing quite like flying through the sky in the middle of the night with your almost ex-wife behind you and the whole thing done in complete, awkward silence for nearly an hour. He was sure she hadn't flown on a pegasus in years, but thankfully, she had no complaints. She mounted and held on with her knees as if all the battles and adventures had just happened yesterday. She was still good at everything.

But he didn't tell her that. He looked straight ahead at the gray horizon, slowly lightening to morning colors. Eos, goddess of the dawn would be sweeping aside the curtains for Apollo to fly his chariot (or sports car, rather) into the smooth track of the blue sky. He wondered how long it would take for the cops to find out he and Annabeth had crept off in the middle of the night. He imagined it would feel none to great in a few days time when he would get to see Nancy Grace chewing him out on national TV for being a scummy parent.

They had discussed before Blackjack arrived to not tell him the entire story about Cassie's disappearance. Percy wanted to, but Annabeth said it would be best to keep everything quiet as possible, for Cassie's safety, wherever she was. There was no argument against that.

"You two are awfully quiet," said Blackjack. "Haven't seen you in a while, Annabeth. How are things?"

"Oh, everything is fine."

He turned fully around. "Everything is _fine?_" he said in disbelief. "You filed for divorce two weeks ago. Remember?"

She met him with her eyes that seemed to glow in the early morning fog. "Drop it."

"Whatever," he muttered, facing forward again. He wouldn't quite call their situation _fine_ in any kind of definition.

"Are you guys okay?" Blackjack piped up.

"Yep," said Percy. "We're just _fine._"

…o…

They landed on the hill at the crack of dawn. The pine tree had grown since they left. Percy felt safer the minute he stepped across the boundary line. Everything looked the same at Camp Half-Blood. In a sense, it made him calmer. With everything outside going horribly wrong in every which way, the stability that Camp Half-Blood always had gave him the reassurance that all the wrongs could somehow be righted.

Beside him, Annabeth inhaled the morning. "What a blast from the past, huh?"

The campers were emerging from their cabins for the start of their day, which had drastically increased in numbers since Percy and Annabeth had attended the place. "Come on," he said, leading the way down the hill toward the Big House. What he didn't expect, was the excited whispers and pointing, and then in a rush, an onslaught of campers crowding around them, eyes wide with adoration as if they were rock stars. They were swamped way before they could get halfway down the hill. "Whoa. Um, what's going on?"

Annabeth exchanged a look with him. "I have no clue, but it's kind of freaking me out."

One of the campers waved, a grin wider than an orange slice pasted on her face. "Hey, Percy!"

He had to blink a couple of times and dig back into his memory. Oh! Some Hermes girl? That was it. She was one of the children Hermes had told him about after the battle and made him promise to retrieve. Except, she was seven when Hermes told him. So he he waited until she turned eleven, by which point, he was already twenty. It was kind of weird, but he had promised. He couldn't remember her name. It started with an "m." Mandy? Marissa? Gods help him, he would feel like a total douche if he failed to figure it out. Her eyes were practically bugging out in happiness. _Maria._ "Hey, Maria," he said.

One of her friends poked her in the side. "He knows your _name?_"

"What in the world," Annabeth murmured.

"And you're Annabeth Chase!" someone else said, clearly another child of Athena. They looked a lot alike. The younger girl had darker hair, but the gray eyes were a reoccurring feature.

"Jackson, actually," she corrected automatically.

The girls giggled madly. Percy wanted to sink into the ground and die. No, wait, then he'd have to explain himself to Nico. Maybe sink into the ocean and live in a coral reef for the rest of his life. Basically, be anywhere but here in the middle of their gaggle of fawning admirers. It was flattering; really, it was. He had forgotten that a lot of these kids had only been told the story of the Rebellion, never actually seen he or Annabeth in person. It was different when you were around your friends and people who knew you. Battles were won; awards were given. People would clap you on the back, congratulate you, joke around for a bit, and then everything would go back to normal. Nobody treated you different or special. But some of these kids wouldn't be here or wouldn't have a cabin if it weren't for the two of them. So that was something. It was still weird.

Annabeth clearly thought so too, or maybe she was made uncomfortable by the fact that in a few days time, she would go back to being a Chase.

The campers were all talking at the same time, asking questions, and a few held up scraps of paper (or their arms) for autographs. Percy didn't quite know what to do. He felt bad bailing on them, but he had more important things to do. Carefully, he and Annabeth made their way—steered the entire crowd—down to the Big House. She tried to tell them they were there on important business, but the campers didn't really seem to be listening. Desperate, she looked over at him. "You go in first," she said. "I'll be right behind you. Eventually. Just tell Chiron, will you?"

…o…

The Big House was empty. There was no sign of Chiron, who was always at the Big House at this time in the morning. Mr. D. wasn't there either—he should've been. He still had thirty-some years left to go on his sentence.

Percy realized the house had undergone some renovation in the years since they left. The parlor, for instance, had a fresh coat of blue paint on the walls. Everything looked nicer. They'd replaced the carpet with lacquered wood floor—a nice warm honey color. It looked like hickory. The thought brought him back to the nightmarish time five years ago, when Annabeth had wanted to put hardwood flooring into their house. He practically considered himself a personal hardwood catalogue at this point, able to classify nearly any type of wood. It was not an accomplishment he was proud of. Nor unfortunately, was it one he could forget easily. He found himself classifying wood every time he ran across it, rather like the way he spouted off coordinates when at sea. It made him wonder whether Poseidon secretly had some sort of affinity with wood that he had previously been unaware of.

He pushed open the door in the back. He had been in there before, but it used to be a library that held Ancient Greek texts and other mismatched books. It wasn't anymore. The room was bigger, or so it looked. Now, it held all kinds of strange artifacts on pedestals, some behind glass boxes, each with a little bronze plaque beside it. The room had been transformed into some kind of squished museum exhibit. Some of the displays in the back were still empty. He spotted something familiar out of the corner of his eye. Fascinated, he got closer.

It was. He was sure of it; he had just never seen it before in person: the dragon claw that had scarred Luke's face so many years ago. It had been carefully polished. It was black, but underneath the light, pockets of red and green glimmered. The date had it listed as 2001. Luke. It had been so long since he had crossed Percy's mind. Had he been reborn yet?

And the display right next to the dragon claw was something he hadn't seen in a long time. But he remembered it. Something like that, you couldn't forget. This one was under glass too.

_Scarf of the Goddess Aphrodite_

Recovered at Waterland, Denver, CO

By Annabeth Chase and Percy Jackson

The label was raised neatly in bronze cast on the little plaque. He ran his fingers over it. They had been twelve. Wasn't that something? All this time…and now it had been made into a museum exhibit, as if it were an archaic thing, years ago, that no one today had any memory for anymore. It was a little bit depressing. He tried not to think in metaphors.

"Well, well. Hasn't it been a long time? Finally thought you'd drop by for a visit, huh?"

Startled by the voice, he turned around. "You?"

Rachel Elizabeth Dare, dressed in a t-shirt and running shorts with her curly red hair tied up stared back. "Yeah. I live here, re-mem-ber?" she said, stretching out the syllables slowly.

"You were gone," he said. "Out of the country or something?" He couldn't quite believe it. She always had a girlish face; her freckles made her look younger than she was.

She came closer, teasing a loose curl behind her ear. "So you kept up, kind of. Yeah, I was in Florence for the last couple of years, doing some extra studies on the Medici-commissioned art of the Renaissance. My Italian is almost passable now." She grinned. Up close, she still had a sheen of sweat on her forehead. He remembered that she liked jogging in the morning.

She glanced up at him—she was a head shorter—and followed his line of vision. "Oh yeah, they changed this place up. In the back, they built some sleeping quarters and a private kitchen for me. I didn't want something separate—too fancy, see. We had a hard time convincing Apollo, because he wanted a massive temple with a chasm and colored smoke. The works. He's got a bit of the melodramatic going on. But he's not the greatest interior designer, so we went with this. And we changed the attic into a studio for me. It's pretty spacious once you take out the molding artifacts and the mummy."

He grinned. "I guess that would be you now."

"That is not funny. I'm turning thirty in a month. Age is not even something to joke about anymore. I mean, Apollo is starting to look visibly younger than me, and that's—well, that's just unfortunate. The gods. Dammit, them and their immortality."

That was one thing he'd always liked about Rachel. Whether they'd seen each other yesterday or had nearly lived separate lives for a decade, sinking back into conversation was easy. Like he'd once thought a long time ago, it was a lot easier than talking to some girls—women—he knew. Something about not having to trod carefully all the time. Funnily enough, though, Annabeth and her had become great friends. Rachel had even been one of her bridesmaids. They used to really run up the phone bill talking for hours—international calls, no less. That was before Annabeth had gotten pregnant and all semblance of normality and time had gone out the window. Falling out of touch seemed like such a thoroughly, mundanely adult thing to do, but he had to keep reminding himself that they were adults now, as weird as it sounded still.

"So what're you up to now?" he asked. "Still reciting your messages of gloom and doom to the world?"

"Well, there's not exactly an age of retirement for this gig, you know? And I don't even remember the crap that comes out of my mouth until someone tells me, so _my life_ is a bundle of sunshine. It's not my fault the spirit of Delphi is such a soppy, depressed thing. Anyway, in real life, I travel to art institutes across the country, giving lectures sometimes. For fun, not like I need the money. And I sell some paintings and sculptures too."

He was impressed.

"So where's Annabeth? She has to be around here somewhere, right?" Rachel asked with a hair tie between her teeth as she re-secured her bun.

"She's outside. She'll be here in a minute." He wondered what was taking her so long. Had the campers mauled her? Maybe he should have stayed out there instead.

"Yeah, how's that going? The married life, and all."

Oh, crap. He kept forgetting that they hadn't broken the news to anyone. Well, was he going to do it? He really, really didn't want to get into the details. And he knew for sure, Annabeth was going to be mighty pissed that he told Rachel without her there. Really, though, since they were officially filing papers and everything, he could do whatever the hell he wanted, right? That was the point of separation, right? They couldn't keep this secret until the next time they met up with friends and then casually dropped into conversation, "Oh, by the way, we're not on speaking terms anymore. Hope that doesn't make things completely awkward." She couldn't tell him what to do anymore. He didn't _care._ Really, he didn't.

"We're getting a divorce, actually." He tried to sound nonchalant about it, but that really wasn't something you could succeed at sounding nonchalant about. It still hurt to say it, like tiny needles prickling. He ignored it.

Rachel, who had been reading a plaque with her back turned, did a complete turn on her heel and stared at him as if he had just announced that he was going to become a priest. He shifted in his spot uncomfortably, speared by her gaze. "What?"

"Are you really going to make me repeat myself?" he said, insulted.

She waved her hands distractedly. "No, no. I mean, _what_?"

"Yeah, you said that already." He was quickly discovering why it was a bad idea to break this news by himself.

"But you never said anything. Wow, I never thought this would happen."

"Me neither," he said, wishing they could move onto anything else. _Really. Anything. Let's talk about the weather. Let's talk about how it is being the virginal host of Delphi. Well, actually not. Let's not talk about that. But anything else._ Unfortunately, she was still going. _Why did I bring this up again?_

"This is not supposed to happen."

Why did she keep repeating it? "The general idea when you get married is to not have divorce happen," he told her.

"But—but—you guys like are The Couple. The only couple I know that has been wallowing in marital bliss since the wedding. For crying out loud, you're practically the couple from The Notebook! Minus the Alzheimer's and flocks of artistically flying geese, of course."

"Of course." He was, as any human being who possessed the Y-chromosome, mildly embarrassed to admit that he had watched The Notebook in the first place. In his defense, it had been on TV once on a night where he had been clearly desperate out of his thinking wits (gods knew, Annabeth wasn't into mushy-romance crap either, so thankfully, he had never been dragged along to suffer through horrible chick flicks where _everyone_ in the audience knew exactly what was going to happen at the end, but sat through two hours of angst and an overabundance of estrogen anyway), and he couldn't stifle his curiosity as to why millions of girls across the country swooned to the mere mention of the title. He still didn't understand after watching it and feeling mildly pissed that he had wasted his time, but he was _never _going to bring up that tidbit to Annabeth or any female in life or death.

The thing that came to mind was, _you've watched The Notebook too?_ It seemed like such a thoroughly un-Rachel thing to do. Although, since he didn't want to steer the conversation into the realms of The Notebook, he didn't bring it up. Instead, he said, "You didn't see the divorce coming? You, being the Oracle and all?"

She narrowed her eyes. "I'm not your personal horoscope reading, Percy."

"Oh. Right," he said sheepishly.

The door opened.

"Annabeth!" Rachel exclaimed.

Annabeth went straight to her friend, and they hugged. Percy watched on, thinking this was some kind of weird reality show life was putting him through at the moment. What a thoroughly odd way to reconnect with old friends. For a second, with all the hugging, he could almost think about the good old times, when everything was simple, and nothing had gotten screwed up yet. Then, Annabeth turned to him and asked, "Have you talked to Chiron yet? Where is he?" And his heart sank.

But before he could answer, they heard bickering outside the door. One voice was raised loud and clear, a blustery tone that none of them would ever not be able to recognize. The door blew open and swung out against the wall. Chiron, without his wheelchair, ducked through the door and his flanks brushed against the frame. Behind him, Mr. D in a purple pinstriped suit swept into the room. "I told you," Mr. D said, glaring single-mindedly at his companion, "This is what happens when we let those minor nuisances take on airs. I knew it was a bad idea from the beginning, but we had to listen to the stupid brat all those years—" He stopped dead in his tirade when he finally took the time to catch his breath and look at who was in the room.

Chiron offered a weak smile. "Welcome back," he said. He looked frazzled.

Mr. D positively glowered. "Well, well. And so it begins, I suppose."

* * *

**A/N:** And feedback is great to make sure I'm going vaguely in the right direction. :-)


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: **Am I not being pretty good at updating so far? This chapter is dedicated to **Kioko**, who is quickly becoming my best friend that I've never met, without whose help, this story would be lost, lost, lost. So thank her by reading her stories, little mushrooms. Do it. Although, I'm sure most of you have discovered them on your own already.

* * *

**Chapter 5**

Percy sank into the chair, moving as if through maple syrup. He could hear laughter outside. There was always laughing, teasing, joking, at Camp Half-Blood. He wanted to laugh too. He wished he didn't know all of these heavy things that weighed him down, left no room for laughter. "Well," he said. "The world is ending. Again."

"This is a serious matter, Jacobson," Mr. D snapped.

Some things never changed. Like the Olympians penchant for killing each other off and then relying on others to fix the problem. He was tired. Too old for this. He imagined being summoned back to Camp when he was seventy, dragging a bum foot with the support of a cane. He would bet Mr. D would be just as unsympathetic then.

Chiron sighed. "I'm sorry to dump this on you all at once," he said. "But we didn't expect this to happen."

"Look," said Percy. "I feel really bad about this. I do. I want to help out, don't you feel like this is something other people should be worrying about?" _In other words, this is none of our damn business,_ he thought privately. "We saved the world from its apocalyptic demise thirteen years ago, remember? We did what we had to do."

Mr. D leaned in. "You think this is all just a 'let's take turns and share' happy Sesame Street kind of thing? If we want to talk about _fair_, then why won't someone _else_ be in charge of this godforsaken camp once in a while?"

"Hey. This is not our fault. None of this is our fault. You just expect me to be your maid and clean up all of your divine messes all the time. You Olympians just spent the last thirteen years having so many children you wouldn't even be able to count them on your fingers and toes if you sprouted extra hands and feet! Much less be able to name them. Did it ever occur to you that some of us our tired of dealing with this?" Percy said.

Thunder rumbled overhead, sounding offended.

"Don't care!" Percy yelled at the ceiling, daring the lord of the sky to strike him down with a bolt of lightning. None came, and he felt gratified.

"Don't lip off to me," Mr. D warned. "Just because your voice has changed and you're no longer a pre-pubescent pain, doesn't mean I can't whip your little hide all the way back to your Daddy's palace in the sea." His eyes glowed bright purple. At this point, Percy couldn't tell if he was doing it just to scare him into submission or he was about to turn him into a sea cucumber for real. He clenched his jaw and decided it would be better not to chance it. Mr. D could be more unpredictable than Zeus.

Chiron cut in, "Now, now. This is not an ideal situation for any of us."

"Not ideal," Mr. D mumbled.

"But this has happened before," said Annabeth, her brows knit, trying to understand, always trying to understand. "They should know better."

"The Apple of Discord is not an ordinary golden apple. It has a curse. You can't voluntarily resist its challenge once you've seen it. And the curse will always play out in destruction, for mortals or immortals. It has 'For the fairest' inscribed on it, but instead of just Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite fighting over the Apple, it was thrown with all of the minor goddesses present as well, and of course, they all want it too. It was an ingenious plan for someone who knew we would be having council yesterday. The problem is"—Chiron hesitated—"we don't quite know who threw the Apple this time."

"It's Eris' apple," said Annabeth. "She wants nothing but trouble."

"Yes, but nobody saw her do it this time. She wasn't at the council on Mount Olympus. In fact, we don't know where she is. Perhaps she's hiding after the deed has been done. But all of the other minor gods were there. It could have been any one of them. Or she could still be the mastermind behind it all. I just don't understand why she would try something like this again. Eris doesn't like playing pranks more than once. But we can all see the appeal for someone who wants to cause trouble. It has been nothing but chaos, multiplied by an increase in participants. When the brothers fight, it is already bad enough, but when the goddesses get involved, things can get much, much worse."

"How worse?" Percy asked.

"Remember what happened last time?" Annabeth said, glancing at him quietly.

Percy didn't know much Greek mythology, but he knew enough. "The Trojan War." He paused, drinking in the extent of the words. "This is bad," he hypothesized.

Chiron shifted in his wheelchair. "Except now, there is much more manpower in the world. And nuclear weaponry."

"Really bad," said Percy.

…o…

"Do you think this has something to do with Cassie?" he said later, after Mr. D had left to attend to some campers who were attempting to eavesdrop outside.

Chiron interlaced his fingers. "Yes, most likely. It is hard to believe that when there is a disturbance this large among the Olympians that people like you would not be affected. This could very likely be some goddess's doing. I wouldn't know what is running through their heads right now. I imagine very unpleasant, chaotic, illogical things." He made a poor attempt at smiling. "You see, Percy, this conflict affects you in a very direct way."

Percy knew this was going in a direction he did not like already. Everything bad seemed to affect him in a _very direct way_.

"They want you to serve the purpose Paris did back then."

The room fell totally silent. "What?" Percy said, that one word dropping like a stone into calm water. It sounded extraordinarily loud.

"They want you to judge which one is the fairest."

It was like every muscle in his body ceased to move. He was stunned. "Wha—no! I don't want to do that! Think about it. The second I make my choice, I'll have more than just two pissed goddesses going after me, I'll have at least ten. All the invulnerability in the world isn't going to save me from a mob of goddesses who think I've called them ugly!"

"Absolutely not," said Annabeth, adding her voice to his. "This is a death sentence, and you know it, Chiron. Nobody should be making this choice, least of all a demigod. Isn't there some way to bring them to their senses?"

Even though Annabeth failed to look at him, Percy felt the tiniest bit glad that she was standing behind him on this. At least she didn't hate him so much that she wanted him to die. That was always a plus. What was that saying? "_Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned."_ _Yeah, except make "woman" plural and give them all the power to burn anyone they want into a crisp. And by "anyone they want" I mean _me.

Rachel, who had been sitting subdued in the corner, coughed. "There has to be some way to get rid of the curse. Make the goddesses come back to their senses."

"That is where we're aiming our course of action," said Chiron with another sigh. Percy noticed that tiny, fine wrinkles had appeared in the corner of his eyes. _But he was immortal. Immortals don't age_, he thought, before tuning back into the conversation, of which he was a vital part. "We have to find the one who cast the Apple into the fray. Only the caster can withdraw the Apple—perhaps destroy it forever. That would be the best course of action, and it should have been done after the Trojan War, but nobody thought of in the aftermath of Troy's destruction. The goddesses are in favor of a judging. The gods won't speak up against them, as you might imagine, a horde of angry goddesses are not what you want to mess with, no matter how powerful you are. They'll be looking for you, Percy."

_Why is everyone always looking for me?_

"I'm probably not that hard to find," he said. If a super-powerful being wants to find you, they won't have much trouble."

"In fact," said Chiron, "I don't think it would be any stretch of the imagination to think that one of them kidnapped your daughter."

"For ransom," Annabeth said, thunderstruck. Her face was alternating between red and white, and Percy thought she might faint or throw something really heavy at the wall; perhaps both. He thought he might do the same thing. He inched closer and put his hand on her knee. For comfort. For himself as well as her. His head was a mess of cobwebs and air. How could he have let this happen? This _was_ his fault. He hated admitting he was right to Mr. D, but it was definitely his fault. Since he had been _all magnanimous_ with the minor gods and how they deserved more respect, they were invited to all of the councils on Mount Olympus. Not only did it make the room (which was enormous) crowded, it also made it nearly impossible for any kind of consensus, ever. Maybe the Olympians deserved a dictatorship with Zeus calling all the shots. Maybe democracy was too complicated for a gaggle of gods that could barely agree on what order they should file into the main hall in. _Never change a system that hasn't completely fallen apart yet._

As if Mr. D could read his mind (probably could, nosy bastard), he sniffed, "Not that I want to say 'I told you so' but—I told you so."

Percy waved his hand flippantly around his forehead, trying to clear away the unpleasant thoughts. "Whatever. I mean, this is low, Chiron. Really, really low. Whichever one thinks I'm going to pick her because she stole my daughter is going to have another thought coming _fast_ when she gets Riptide shoved up her divine ass, goddess or not." He was so angry he could barely think straight.

"I have to do some thinking about this," Annabeth said. She looked uncertain, and Percy rarely saw her hesitate on anything. "Rachel—is there some kind of prophecy for this?"

She shook her head, red curls flying. "I don't think I gave one. Maybe no one is supposed to go…" she faltered.

Chiron turned toward Percy. "I would suggest looking for the one who started this mess. That's the way you'll be able to fix it. The repercussions of warring goddesses will soon be felt in the mortal world. This is not something that can be ignored."

"No," he said. "I'm going to be looking for the one with Cassie. That's what's most important right now. She'll be searching for me to judge, and I'll be waiting." He would. He would be waiting to pop her right in the—

"Annabeth, what do you think?" Chiron interrupted.

She pursed her lips for a moment and grabbed Percy's sleeve. "We need to talk about this." She turned toward Chiron and Rachel. "Excuse us."

She half dragged him outside, and he couldn't decide whether this being the first time that they have seriously talked since she gave him twenty-four hours to clear out of their flat was a good thing or a bad thing. She pushed him into the swinging seat on the front porch as she settled onto the railing matter-of-factly, and he felt as if he were back in junior high, getting one of those "we need to talk about your behavior" type of discussions with his disapproving homeroom teacher. Annabeth hooked her left foot behind her right ankle. "So what are we going to do now?"

This conversation seemed pointless. "Look for Cassie," he told her. "And we should go as soon as possible, as in"—he checked his watch—"right now."

"Really," she said, looking unimpressed. "Every goddess in the cosmos is chasing after you like rabid fangirls after the Jonas Brothers, and you think we can make any progress like that?"

"They'll come to me, then. Easy peasy."

"Except the one with Cassie will most definitely not be coming after you."

"What do you mean?"

She sighed, as if she were trying to explain things to a drunken squirrel. "Oh, spit it out already," he snapped, as she gave him a warning look.

"Don't use that tone with me."

He took a breath, swallowed, and started again. "I'm sorry," he said, the apology dragging out slowly on cement. He seemed to always be apologizing these days, and he was so sick of it. _Why am I always in the wrong?_ Annabeth's desire to be proven right had intensified since the divorce, and she was just as bad as Mr. D. Which all things considered, was pretty bad. He couldn't believe he was comparing his best friend to the ordained King of Annoying, god of wine. He sure needed some wine to get through this. "I know we can't be married anymore," he said, throat tightening, "but can't we be friends at least? Like we used to? For this?"

"Percy," she said reproachfully, "I'll always be your friend. You can count on that."

Sure, it sounded nice, but he wasn't convinced by the way she said it, or the way she refused to look at him as she said it. She charged on, brushing aside her words. "Don't you think it's a bit extreme for a goddess to abduct a kid? I don't think the Olympians would stoop that low for something like this. Especially since we saved their asses a couple years ago. Even they don't have memories that short."

"Hmm, I don't know," he said, "I mean, they're all under some psycho spell where they're fighting over who is the prettiest like in a round of some fucked up beauty pageant. Who knows what they would do?" He had been around for Athena threatening to scalp him just because he was the son of her hated uncle. Olympians did crazy shit, and who was he to predict what they would or would not do? Rationality was something that only applied to demigods and mortals, a trait strictly off-limits for immortals who had nothing to do for centuries except pick petty fights with each other and see just how close they could get to blowing up the planet without actually doing it.

"It still doesn't smell right to me," she muttered. "Maybe…if she did take Cassie, she would stay undercover at the right moment. And she would keep her until the judging was over to make sure you do exactly what she wants." She locked eyes with him, dead serious. "You can't make the judgment, no matter what."

"I know that. I don't want to cause World War III."

She leaned back on the railing. "We need a plan."

He stared at her for a minute and bit his lip.

"What?" she demanded, catching his expression.

"Never mind." Even though he would never admit it to her, her obsessive-compulsive need for preparation amused him. Most of the time, at least. When she hauled his butt out on Black Friday for shopping after Thanksgiving in order to _buy Christmas presents_, he was not so amused. He was more of a "oh crap, Christmas is in two days—I wonder what's left at Target?" kind of guy. Improvisation. It was a beautiful thing, the merits of which he hadn't quite been able to convince Annabeth yet. It was an ongoing process. Now, he wouldn't be able to finish it, of course, and she would live the rest of her life as an anal, pain in the ass about plans from sending birthday cards on time to what everybody would be wearing the next day.

"What are you smirking about?"

"Nothing!"

She eyed him and seemed to think better of what she was about to say. "What are we going to do with you?" she said finally, shaking her head.

"Am I an object to be dealt with?" he said, affronted.

"You might as well put a big, fat target on your forehead. Everyone will be after you, and whoever has Cassie is going to stay miles and miles away. You can't come. You'll only be a distraction."

The ugly, impatient monster inside him reared up. "Since when was it okay for you to tell me what I can and can't do? We're not married, you know," he shot back at her.

Her face closed upon itself, and he immediately regretted his outburst, but unfortunately, he was never good at taking things back. For a split second, he was almost frightened that he had broken their fragile truce of friendship, but then it passed as fast as it came. Mostly, he was afraid that their friendship had been lost a while ago. Or maybe it was buried so deep that he wouldn't be able to retrieve it. He couldn't keep repeating "sorry" forever. Besides, he had the impression that she had stopped listening to it. And maybe he didn't mean it when he said it anymore. For whatever reason, there was a communication breakdown, and he was scrambling in the dark for some connection that they had lost.

He made his way to the door and paused with his hand on the handle. "I'll be inside," he said. But she was looking across the fields at something he couldn't see and didn't respond. The screen door slapped shut behind him.

…o…

Chiron flipped on the TV. "There's something else that you should see before you go."

The anchor that flickered onto the screen had shoulder-length blonde hair that flipped out. A thumbnail over her shoulder was a picture of he and Annabeth, Cassie on his lap. A family picture they took a few years ago. It was in a frame in the living room. The dry broadcasting voice reported, "The couple reported their daughter missing at eight o'clock pm yesterday, and by this morning they had disappeared. All signs point to an escape. They have been upgraded to the status of suspects in the case, and police are searching for them as we speak. They are still looking for a motive in the kidnapping."

"Turn it off," said Percy, ears ringing.

Chiron obliged. "It is much easier for the authorities to seek you out now that you are no longer children," he said quietly.

"Wow," Percy mused, "I wonder whether the gods will find me first or the police. Will they still want me to judge from prison? I don't think they'll all be able to fit in my jail cell." He remembered back to when he was twelve years old and Zeus and Hades were both out for his blood. Gabe had reported him to the police, and he and Annabeth had been on the run then too. And then the year after that when he had set his gym on fire. And then the year after that when he had been chased across D.C. and seriously pissed off some security guards in the Hoover Dam. And then the year after that when he attacked a cheerleader (a fake cheerleader, but mortals couldn't tell the difference) and set his school on fire. Finally, his crowning glory had been practically wrecking the whole of Manhattan. In his defense, none of it was actually his fault. But either way, he had to stop making a habit of being on the Top Ten Most Wanted list. It simply didn't make for stable, normal family living, which was what Annabeth had wanted all of these years.

Speaking of Annabeth, where was she anyway? She had been outside for almost half an hour now. Surely, even an anal retentive planner would feel like this situation was urgent enough to merit leaving ASAP. What, was she having a heart to heart with Mr. D about their marital problems? His stomach turned. He hoped not.

He went outside. The hard blue of the sky showed a cloudless afternoon with a bite of chilly fall air. "Annabeth?"

No one responded. He was really irritated. He couldn't believe how she was wandering to random corners of camp without even giving him a heads up. They should've been discussing their plan of action together. Just because she was pissed at him and just because they were getting a divorce, she felt as if it gave her license to treat him as a marginal person in her life. He wanted to remind her sometimes that they had spent eight years living under the same roof, sharing the same bed, and swapping genes in their offspring. And they had joint custody, but she sure wasn't acting like it—

"Mr. Jackson?"

He stopped in his tracks. Only clients called him that. Campers never called him "Mr. Jackson." He was _so old;_ he swore he wouldn't be visiting camp ever again after the age of thirty when a bunch of teenagers would no doubt be referring to him as grandpa. "Yeah?" he said to a brunette girl of about fourteen.

"Are you looking for Annabeth Chase?"

"Yeah, have you seen her?"

"We all saw her go to the stables and fly away. Said she had something important to do."

_Fly away?_ Where would she be going? What did she think she was doing?

It struck him like a sack of bricks. She left without telling him. He was both amazed and absolutely furious beyond all reason, until his emotions twisted and tangled up his head. He couldn't even try to predict what was going on in her thoughts as she decided this; for a daughter of Athena, sometimes, she made really loony decisions, and she couldn't chalk it up to pregnancy anymore. Did she really think he wouldn't go looking for her? "Uh, thanks, kid," he told the girl. _Real cool, Annabeth, real cool,_ he thought furiously as he marched back up the stairs to the Big House. _Now I have to find you and Cassie? I mean, when was the last time you went out fighting monsters? Is she even carrying a weapon? She's going to get mauled,_ _and_ to hell if I care.

_This is, yet again, NOT MY FAULT, but I have to deal with it anyway._

He barged into the Big House. "Annabeth has left." Chiron and Rachel stared at him incredulously. "_Alone_," he added. "And now I have to find her before she goes off and is knocked off by some monster." He slipped down the steps and across the clearing before anyone could stop and question him, wondering at what point in his life he decided that persistent, reckless women were attractive and at what point he decided it would be a good idea to marry one. If Cassie inherited her mother's genes, he was fleetingly grateful that he and Annabeth were getting a divorce, because the teenage years were going to bad enough without two _persistent, reckless_ females butting heads in the same living space.

* * *

**A/N: **PJO reviewers have proven to be my favorite out of any fandom I've written for, so do what you do best! They are the only bright spot in my life as midterms loom closer to destroy my GPA. I'm destroying my GPA, and thus, my chances of getting into law school by writing this story, anyway. Give me some love.


	6. Chapter 6

**and your heart starts to wonder where on this earth i could be:** Something cheery to lift a dismal Monday, I hope. I am very much enjoying writing this story, and I hope you are enjoying coming along on this ride with me. As always, my planning skills are next to nonexistent, but Percy seems to be doing a good job of getting himself into all kinds of shenanigans. He is good like that, and I suppose that's why he's one of my favorite characters.

**Miracle of all miracles, Blackjack speaks human now (!): **Someone (**bam**) pointed out to me that a couple chapters back, Blackjack manages to converse with Annabeth without any translation, and while Annabeth is certainly very good at learning languages, she's not that great at horse-speak. So yeah, I'll go back and change it sometime. Kudos for noticing and letting me know.

**Will I be writing in Annabeth's POV: **No. I did give this a lot of thought, and initially, I was going to alternate, but thought better of it. You see, I am not a big fan of POV switches unless the author can do it well, and right now, I'm not comfortable enough with it to make the switch easily. Also, Annabeth's POV would give us a lot of insight as to why she is filing for divorce, and we can't have that right now, CAN WE?! Of course not. That would take all of the suspense out of it, although I assure you, you will find out eventually (soon). And because all things in life are not that simple, the reasons are infinite for why two people are not working out. We must believe that even those who are best for each other can fall out of love. And vice versa, I suppose.

Blithering: done. On with the story!

* * *

**Chapter 6**

"I can't believe this is happening," he said as they glided through the air. He scanned the skies, thankfully clear and bright. But he couldn't see a single trace of her. They slid gracefully over a flock of geese heading south for the winter. Their beady eyes trained on the flying horse. Percy could almost see the gears turning in their walnut-sized bird brains, trying to comprehend what was going on. He waited until their soft honks melted seamlessly into the quiet afternoon. It was remarkably quiet hundreds of feet above ground, even if they were less than fifty miles away from one of the biggest cosmopolitan areas in the world.

Annabeth and Porkpie had only gotten a half an hour's head start. Even flying as fast as they could (which was nowhere as fast as Percy could coax a pegasus to fly), he should've been able to spot them.

"I didn't know that she didn't tell you," Blackjack said, sounding regretful. "I woulda stopped her otherwise."

"It's not your fault," Percy muttered. To be honest, when Annabeth felt like putting on the façade of innocence in order to trick him, she almost always succeeded. _It might be something to consider,_ he thought sullenly, _that either she is actually an extremely good liar or that I am extremely gullible. And I'm thinking it might be a combination of the two._ At any rate, he never succeeded when it came to pulling wool over _her _eyes, and he couldn't help but think this was a very poorly matched union indeed. _Now to figure out where the woman had gone._

He squinted against the glaring sunlight, much stronger when at higher altitudes, as if by narrowing his eyes she might magically appear before him. Was there something she knew that he didn't about Cassie's whereabouts? She didn't. She was with him the entire time. Or maybe she had formulated some theory about which goddess had done the kidnapping, and now she was headed there. And of course, she wouldn't tell him about it. He felt more and more frustrated about this whole situation. Which goddess was it?

Hera? It could be Hera—she had developed a marked hatred for the two of them, and the hatred only multiplied when they got married and suddenly became under her protection. Because apparently, saving one from obliteration was not enough to gain forgiveness from refusing to offer a sacrifice. The fact that their wedding had a rather unfortunate tipping of the wedding cake and the random stampede of cows outside the pavilion drowning out the exchange of vows was proof enough that she had serious problem with _letting go_ of things—a serious problem that probably would've been diagnosed as obsession in any kind of modern day psychiatric clinic, but since she was a goddess, naturally, insanity was a quaint inherited trait and not a psychological disorder. Although, the divorce had gone relatively smoothly so far, so it might've been her whole goal in the past fourteen years of her existence to ruin their relationship. _Check yes, for a possibility._

_Hmmm…_

But this was useless. There were minor goddesses too, most of which he knew very little about, and if asked, he certainly wouldn't be able to name. "D'you think she's gone to Olympus?" he asked Blackjack as they wheeled a turn past a particularly tall oak tree. He stayed closer to the ground in case she had already landed. He wondered what the Mist made them look like to mortals down below. A particularly large and awkward duck?

"Dunno, boss. The gods have scattered since the council. The minor ones aren't there anymore, for sure." He flicked a wingtip. "We can't be up here forever. Don't you have any idea? A direction, even?"

"I got nothing," he said grumpily and wished that at some point in the past he would have decided to put an empathy link between the two of them, or maybe furtively attached a GPS chip into her shoulder.

The next thing he knew, he was being jerked out of his mental grumbling by Blackjack's alarmed neigh. They rolled upside down and only Percy's quick reflexes saved him from tumbling to the ground and really testing out that theory of whether or not his invulnerability would save him from bone-crushing collisions. "What—the—hell," he gurgled as they righted themselves midair. Not that he couldn't handle a bit of a loop-de-loop—he had too good of a constitution to be bothered by any kind of twisty turns—but it caught him by surprise, after all. Blackjack fell suspiciously quiet, so much that Percy couldn't even hear him breathing. He was about to demand an answer before his eyes clued him in to what was really going on, and then, he noticed that he didn't like it in the slightest. No wonder Blackjack wasn't making a peep.

"Er, hello," Percy said rather stupidly to the goddess Hera, floating in shimmering robes before him. _No_, he thought guiltily, _I was not musing about how much you hated me a few minutes ago. I don't know what you're talking about._

She laughed, a giggly, girly sound he expected out of a teenage girl on the way to prom, not from the very married, very motherly, very _bitter_ Queen of Heaven. Hera could sure give Nemesis a good run for her money on the whole revenge thing. The last time he had seen her—really seen her, not just felt her presence trying to ruin his life—was when the titans had finally been defeated, and she was still giving him the evil eye on the throne, even though she verbally kind of acknowledged that he and Annabeth were semi-okay.

"Hello, Percy Jackson," she said, smiling so widely he found himself comparing her to a particularly cheerful toad.

She did a little wave, the kind he saw Aphrodite kids doing at camp all the time, except it looked thoroughly ridiculous when coming from Hera. He coughed awkwardly. "How did you find me?" he asked.

"I have my ways, being married to the Lord of the Sky and all. You are flying," she pointed out.

"Yeah, I am," he said. _Thank you, Mrs. Obvious._ But he let it slide.

Meanwhile, she put her hands behind her back and brushed one foot against the other primly, the perfect impression of a six-year-old asking for candy before dinner, and he would know. Then, he knew exactly what was coming, but that didn't prevent her from saying it.

"They already told you," she guessed. "Mr. D—you went to Camp Half-Blood, didn't you?" She arched one eyebrow and rushed on without waiting for answer, as was her bossy way of doing things. Percy remembered that well enough. "I see."

"Before you ask," he told her, "no. I'm not doing it."

She laughed again, a silver bell laugh that sent a shiver down his spine, a good one. He realized it made him feel mushy inside and then immediately told his brain to straighten up and stop thinking that her laugh was cute. Stupid, manipulative gods. "Why do you think I'm so demanding all the time?" Hera asked.

"I dunno," he said with a straight face. "Maybe because you are?"

"You are so silly," she said. He had to admit he was a little relieved that his off-hand comment hadn't caused her to go ape-shit on him; she had a remarkable amount of self-control today. "I only wanted to see how you're doing. Catch up. As your aunt, naturally. Your favorite, I presume?" She flashed her dimples, which he was sure she didn't have before, because they made her look so much younger.

"Right." He had a lot of immortal relatives to choose from. None of them were all that pleasant, except for maybe his dad, but since his mood was so mercurial, it kind of depended on whether you caught him on a good mood or not. But Hera ranked pretty low on that favorites list, right down there with Amphitrite (who would've smashed him flatter than a pancake or turned him into something equally nasty if he didn't have immunity from anything having to do with water powers) and Hades (something about dumping a person indefinitely into a dungeon of the underworld can really put a damper on functional familial relations).

Hera didn't notice his private considerations about her statement, or if she did, she didn't say anything about it. Instead, she fluffed up her hair and said, "This is really not a good place to talk. Why don't we go somewhere nicer? I know! Do you like coffee or tea, dear?"

He did not want to have a gossipy tea party with the Queen of Heaven, no he didn't. Except the way she was smiling at him now was totally disarming. She was sweet, wasn't she? Come to think of it, why didn't he like her to begin with? Here she was, being a perfect hostess. In fact, he liked her a lot. She was pretty too, he noticed for the first time. Really pretty. Soon enough, he was smiling back at her. "I—uh—" What was she asking again?

"That's better," she said, patting his hand. "I knew we could get along if we tried," and she accompanied her words with a million-watt smile. "Excuse us," she said, dipping her head a little at Blackjack. She wrapped her fingers around Percy's wrist. The world melted around them and a gentle breeze blew in his face. His sense of smell caught up with him before his eyesight did. The air slipped from fresh outside air to the mellow, lulling scent of espresso. It was warmer, too.

Percy blinked. They were sitting in some kind of coffee shop, right by the wide front entrance window, where he noticed it was a slim sidewalk and the road was brick. It did not look like New York, but they were clearly in a city of some sort. The name of the coffee shop was written in gold cursive on the glass window, but looking from inside, it was all backwards, and his dyslexia simply did not allow him to do the visual acrobatics required to read the text. He gave up.

"Now," said Hera, "This is much better." She sat across from him, cozily cupping a mug of some hot drink that gave off the most delicious aroma. Maybe hazelnut? She looked much more normal now that she was in a public place and not hovering in the sky. Her hair, which had thin braids running through the loose mass, had silvery threads woven in, but they had disappeared now. She wasn't glowing anymore. But she was as beautiful as ever, in a mortal way, and Percy thought she could definitely pass for a leggy, European model in her twenties.

He had a drink in front of him too, topped a dollop of whipped cream. He looked from the drink to Hera. "Um, did you pay for that?" he asked, feeling slightly dazed. Her eyes were a rich shade of chocolate, and they matched the loose cardigan she wore draped around her shoulders.

She waved her hand dismissively. "Of course not. There are certain perks to being a goddess. This is my favorite café. I come here all the time. It is nice, don't you think?"

_You drop by all the time to steal drinks?_ he thought, before catching himself and realizing it would be best not to accuse her of theft in public. Still, it seemed incredibly crass for a goddess who could probably magic some coins at least.

"Well, Percy Jackson? Tell me how everything is going. It has been a long time since I've seen you. Drink your coffee. The Europeans make it best."

He looked down at his drink and remembered exactly why Hera had brought him here, and cursed silently for being hypnotized by her. She had really been pumping up the charm. The drink. He picked it up gingerly and smelled it. Mocha. She wouldn't poison him in front of all these people, right? Not her style, he decided. Hera was much more of a "smother you with a pillow and then ditching you in a river" kind of woman. He took a sip. It was good. _Wait_—and the alarm bells began to go off in his head—_did she just say "Europeans?"_ It had to be some kind of expression. "Where are we?"

"You already know," she said. "Anyway, you are so distracted! Relax." She touched his hand, and the words got muddled and lost somewhere in the back of his head. "There you are. How is everything at home?" she said in mock interest, eyes trained on him as if there was nothing she would rather be doing at this very moment than listen to Percy spill his guts about his personal life.

Percy began to tell her about his problems, but he caught a glimmer of impatience in her eye. _No_, he thought. _This isn't right. Stop listening to her._ He struggled to remember why he was here. _Look away_, he thought pointedly. _Look outside._ It was early morning, and five minutes ago it had been late afternoon. There was some serious time discrepancy going on. And he wasn't going to play Hera's game. _Annabeth. I have to find her. _"You already know," he told her. "You've probably been spying, and since you're the goddess of marriage, you definitely know I'm getting a divorce. So yeah, things aren't exactly hunky dory at the moment."

"Oh, dear." She made a "tsk, tsk" sound. "That's so unfortunate. As the goddess of marriage, I must say, you should try to make things work out. That's the problem with American families these days. Always rushing to divorce when counseling could do just as much good. Did you know the divorce rate is India is under ten percent? Now, that is the way things should be."

He knew it was a bad idea to criticize an Olympian, but the more he thought about what she said, the angrier he got. She had dragged him all the way to who knows where—in fact, he wasn't sure he _wanted_ to know where, because it might freak him out more than he already was—so she could get all buddy-buddy with him. And who was she to spout social commentary at him anyway? "Don't you think it's kind of ironic that you're lecturing me about my marriage?" he said loudly. Some of the people in the café turned to stare at him, and a few gave him disgusted looks, but he didn't care.

Hera paled slightly and by the press of her lips, he could tell she wasn't pleased. "What are you saying, Percy?" She shot nervous glances around. She did not like being humiliated in public.

"I mean, it's no secret that your marriage has punctures all over it." Nobody ever pointed out the elephant in the room to Hera, he guessed, so it was probably about time that he faced her with the unpleasant truth. He had really done it this time.

Her eyes flashed gold at him. "You take that back," she warned.

Encouraged by her reaction, he pressed on. "Zeus has at least a couple of kids at Camp Half-Blood now, doesn't he?"

She still had that fake smile plastered on her face now, except it was much more strained. The corners of her lips were straight, and only made it seem as if she was in pain. She cracked a forced laugh. It had lost much of its charisma at this point. Inwardly, he felt satisfied that her charm was draining off. It was starting to get really convincing. He shuddered to think what could have happened if she had fully cranked up the _love-me-fear-me_ crap, and he fell for it. "My husband and I are always a work in progress," she said so sweetly that you could have sugared a cake with it. A cake that was full of arsenic.

Percy shrugged. "I don't know. It seems like the pot calling the kettle black to me. You guys probably should've gotten a divorce ages ago."

She stood up, really glowing this time. "Percy Jackson, do not test me."

"You started it. Now why don't you tell me why you're really here? I'm not stupid enough to think you suddenly want to be friends after all these years, _auntie_."

She straightened, dusted herself off, the ice-cold queen again. "Fine, then. So I wanted to give you a chance to do it voluntarily, but I suppose we're reverting to the un-civil way after all."

He scoffed. "If by 'voluntarily' you mean, turn up the love poison and spike my coffee, then yeah. You're learning loads from Aphrodite. I didn't think you were friends." _Three. Two. One._

Hera made a muffled scream through her teeth. "I command you to say that I deserve the golden apple." She grabbed his collar from across the table. "Say it." People in the café were starting to murmur to each other and edge toward the door. The employees behind the counter were eying them.

_Wow. The Apple's curse witch-ified her real good, although she was halfway there without the curse._ He pried her fingers off of him. "Sorry, Your Highness. It doesn't work that way. I'm not making any judgment, but A for effort."

Her mouth twitched like she seriously wanted to give him a good bitch slap. It was probably taking a lot of self-control for her to restrain herself. "All right," she said, trembling with fury. "So be it. But if I can't win, then nobody will. It won't be Aphrodite again, that's for sure. She doesn't even measure up to me in the slightest. I will make sure that _none of them_ find you. That's why I brought you here, to France. Fat chance, them looking for you in Europe. That's not even on their radars." She sneered. "I hope you have a good time getting back. I think you'll find that all of your money has mysteriously vanished. Poof!" She smiled, and he felt sick. "Oh, and sweetie, don't try to take a plane back. For obvious reasons."

She made to leave.

"Wait!" he called out.

Half-turning, she cocked a hip. "Reconsidering?"

"Where is my daughter?"

She furrowed her brow. "Your daughter? Oh, the one on the news? I'm sure I don't know. It's not very good parenting, you know, misplacing your children all of the time. So you won't choose me? No? Suit yourself." Delicately, she placed a finger on the curve of her jaw. "Yes, I _knew_ there was a reason I never liked you or that wife of yours. Best of luck, anyway." She snapped her fingers. "Or not."

Where she had been standing, the air wavered and bended with the light, and then—she was gone, back halfway across the world.

And he was in a café somewhere in France, with no money and no knowledge of French.

Just his luck.


	7. Chapter 7

**you came into my life and i thought _hey_ you know, this could be something: **I am no expert on France, have never been there, never took any years of French, and highly apologize for any inaccuracies. I relied heavily on the BabelFish translator, so it's probably riddled with mistakes. There are twenty million things wrong with this chapter, but I'm done fiddling with it. It's been a week. Time to let it go.

I highly dislike ff dot net's affinity for randomly de-italicizing parts of the text when I upload the document, so if there is something that is a thought or Blackjack speaking, it should be italicized. I think I caught everything, but maybe not.

You are all wonderful for staying with me.

* * *

**Chapter 7**

"Yeah? Well, I never liked you either!" Percy yelled at no one in particular. The air phased to a light floral scent. He swore he could hear Hera laughing from every corner. He gritted his teeth. She was not going to get the best of him. She was _not_ going to have the last laugh over this.

The café patrons couldn't hide their stares. "_S'il vous plait, monsieur. Asseyez vous et soyez tranquille ou bien nous devrons te demander de partir_." He tried not to act too ignorant, but what they said could've meant, "We're going to call the police on you," or "We hope you like moldy cheese," and it all would've been the same to him. He had a better intuitive knowledge for crocheting doilies than speaking foreign languages, and Annabeth claimed that half the time he could barely claim mastery over English. He tended to agree with her, especially right now.

"Sorry," he murmured. "Lo siento?" _Um, that's not right. That's Spanish._ "Uh, I'll leave you alone now. _Merci boucoup?_ _Bonjour_," he told them and noted that his attempt at communication had resulted disastrously as the patrons' stared at him as if he were a particularly displeasing frog. Well, they certainly wouldn't miss him if he left without saying goodbye. He rushed out of the place red-faced, and swearing he was never going to a foreign country without a translator again.

The bright sunlight blinded him momentarily, and he stood in the cobblestone street, shading his eyes. There were vendors wheeling around carts with fresh vegetables and bread. This must've been a very traditional, back alley part of France. For gods' sakes, he didn't even know what city he was in, and if he was going to be honest with himself, the only one he could really name was Paris.

Heart pounding like a jackhammer, he dashed to one of the vendors and began to babble in English. "Where are we? What is this place? What time is it?"

The man looked slightly overwhelmed. "_Excusez moi? Etes vous perdu?_"

Percy swore. The only part he understood was "excuse me," the rest of it was lost in foreign gobbledegook. This wasn't getting him anywhere. He glanced helplessly at passerby, wondered randomly if there were any demigods in France.

"Sir," the man said, catching his attention in heavily accented English. "Are you _Américain_?"

"Yes," Percy said, relieved, running a hand through his air. _Lucky, lucky._ "What city is this?" he said, enunciating every syllable.

The man gave him a look that indicated he thought Percy was crazy. "You travel? On vacation?"

"Not really. I'm kind of lost."

"Ah, I see," said the man, who obviously did not see at all. "Eh, this is Bordeaux, very popular tourist site. Good architecture, good wine." He grinned widely. _Oh, excellent_, Percy thought. _Should've brought Annabeth and Mr. D here for an annual retreat. Very nice._ Over the edges of the shorter shops, he saw the skyline of the city, and there was some rather impressive work, the spires of intricately carved cathedrals, and in the distance, he smelled the salty tang of the ocean.

"This is a sea port," he noted in surprise.

"_Oui,_" said the man, looking pleased that Percy had figured this out.

He was thinking now, thinking furiously about how he could get out of this situation. Absentmindedly, he checked his back pockets, noting that indeed, his wallet had disappeared. This new habit of pick pocketing that Hera had developed was not a particularly pleasing one to him. He hoped, at least, that she had left some of it for the coffee she had flat out stolen from the café. So that was settled. No tickets for him, aerial or otherwise. Zeus had always been a bit of a wuss when it came to dealing with his wife; Percy had no doubt that if he stepped foot on a plane, the Lord of the Sky would obligingly send that plane to its doom, no matter what Percy had done in the past to earn his favor. Damn, fickle gods.

He couldn't take a boat, even if he did commandeer one. Boat speeds had greatly improved, some of the fastest taking maybe a day and a half. But even if he sped it up, calmed all the storms, and had motor moving faster than mechanically possible, it would still take him twenty-ish hours, and he simply didn't have twenty-ish hours to spare. By that time, the goddesses would have launched an all out manhunt for his skin, and Annabeth might already have her head chopped off—he didn't even want to think about where that would leave Cassie. Although, it was a good thing that he knew almost positively that Hera wasn't the one responsible. Even though she was being a total ass, he could tell from the slight jump of her eyebrows that she truly had no idea what he was talking about. And that was good. One down, _umpteen_ to go.

But Bordeaux was a sea port. And that was very, very good. As long as he wasn't in the middle of France, things were looking up.

"Thanks," he told the vendor, who still looked hopeful that Percy might buy a loaf of bread or two. Percy rubbed the back of his neck and reached into his back pocket for anything. He couldn't leave without contributing anything. The watch on his wrist caught his eye. That was something. Quickly, he unlatched it and handed it to the vendor. "Sorry," he said, a bit inanely, "but I don't have cash. Maybe you can sell it."

The vendor looked from the watch to Percy. "Thank you?" he said, bewildered.

But he had already dived into the labyrinth of small cobblestone alleys in pursuit of the sea. This part of the city was built before urban planning existed, he reasoned, as instead of neat rectangular grids, it twisted in every which direction so that if he couldn't feel the ebb and flow of the ocean calling just beyond on the rooftops, he would be hopelessly lost. A natural maze that even Daedalus himself would have to admire.

Over the edges of rooftops, skimming into sweet blue sky, he saw a few buildings—perhaps court houses?—that had columns; Doric, ionic, or Corinthian, one of those that Annabeth had told him about and that he would never remember. Had the gods ever settled in France? His knowledge of history was not good enough for that, but it seemed like somewhere Aphrodite would've thoroughly liked, as he noted stylish boutiques and everyone he passed, dressed as if in preparation for New York Fashion Week. And of course, Paris, the City of Love. Surely, Aphrodite had a hand in that. Sometimes, Percy couldn't help but be amazed by the level of infiltration the gods had in every corner of the world.

Ah! He skidded to a stop, swaying a little to regain his balance. Spreading wide and bluish gray for an endless distance, a distance no eye could span, was the Atlantic Ocean, glittering with the light of the morning sun. The salt melded smoothly into the air. Overhead, seagulls wheeled about, waiting for the tourists below to drop parts of their breakfasts and lunches. The waves rolled in with pretty, white crests, picturesque as anything, any beach he had ever been to. It would've been beautiful in any other scenario except this. Right now, the stretch of sea served as nothing but an obstacle to where he needed to be.

Percy was ninety percent resigned to the fact that he would have to swim or power a motor to get back to New York. Although, the idea of spending over twenty hours in freezing water and navigating around icebergs like a ridiculous ocean Frogger game did not appeal to him a great deal. He weighed the costs and benefits of snatching a ship. He could _do it_, no problem, although he admitted quietly in the back of his head that things would've been a lot easier if he had a handy son of Hermes hanging around. There would probably be shouts, a lot of shouts. The police might be called, so he'd have to do it fast. And then, worst of all, some of them might try to open fire—hey, you had to be prepared for things like that—and while it couldn't actually do anything to him, it would probably scare the shit out of the sailors if they saw bullets bouncing off his chest like some kind of Superman. Then, it'd get on the news, and he'd _really_ be screwed. Even if he did get back, he was sure Annabeth would see his face on the news and she might prefer he never return at all than greet her with the cheery possibility of international prosecution.

With a kind of vague horror, he regarded his two options. It was like picking death by beheading or by hanging, and he figured neither option would be that awesome.

Perhaps this was the one time in his life that he wished he could be a son of Hades instead of a son of Poseidon. The ability to shadow travel would be such a plus.

But wait—

He lingered on the idea. That could be worth pursuing. Surely, as a son of the Big Three, there were _some_ kinds of travel perks. As he had gotten older, he found that his ability to manipulate water had only improved, and he thought—well, there was never any harm in trying.

If Nico could travel using shadows, why couldn't he, using water? There was water all over the world. Nymphs did it all the time; he knew that for a fact, although when he asked how they did it, the perpetual teenagers pressed their fingers to their lips to stifle the giggling with the suggestion, "Why don't you figure it out, son of Poseidon?"

The nymphs thought he could do it. (Or maybe they were just screwing with him. That happened a lot when it came to dealing with nymphs.)

The beach was pretty empty because of the windy day, grains of sand swirling along, getting into sandwiches and eyes. It was better this way, so it wouldn't engender any frantic calls to the hospital as he submerged into the sea and never resurfaced.

The water was chilly but when he waded in, clothes, shoes, and all, it didn't feel that bad. Kind of warm, like a comfort blanket. It had been a while since he'd gone to the open sea. He kept going until his head disappeared under the waves, and then, he was floating amongst the ghostly green kelp and schools of curious minnows.

_Now what?_ Nobody was watching, but it was awkward anyway. Feeling rather foolish, he closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on disappearing.

Nothing happened. He looked around and knew that he bobbed underwater in the exact same location as five seconds ago. The minnows swirled around him as if trying to provide him with an answer. All he heard was unintelligible whispering—minnows and small fish were never the best at coherent communication, and even some of the larger fish didn't have the most interesting of thoughts to delve into. He shut his eyes again, trying harder.

_Come on,_ he thought. _I gotta go home._ He thought of the particular feel of the water on the shores of Long Island, the blue-green shade it was on the nicest, sunniest days. He tried to imagine the pull of home, dragging him from France back to America. And then—unbidden, he thought of the light brush of freckles on Cassie's cheeks in the summer when they splashed on the beach at Montauk. He was startled by the perfect gold glint in Annabeth's hair when the sun hit it just right on lazy Saturday afternoons. It flashed across his memory like a photograph, a little fuzzy, but still as perfect as the day he took it.

He felt a real tug in his gut. The consistency of the water changed, cooled slightly.

…o…

When Percy came ashore again, the coordinates rang loud in his head. But he didn't need them.

_Hey, boss,_ said Blackjack, before calmly lowering his head to graze.

Percy had landed back at Camp Half-Blood. The shores had a measure of defenses against people washing up from the sea, but he was pleased to see that he had breached them without any difficulty. Except—"How did you know I would end up here?" he asked.

Blackjack shook out his mane. _I dunno. __Son of Poseidon and all, I just kind of assumed you would pop up out of some body of water. You sure took your sweet time, though. So what happened? Where'd the Lady take you?_

"France," he said grimly. "Next time we run into someone, just fly away, no questions asked." _I don't need to find out the favorite countries of any other goddesses._

_You got it, boss. You know the Head Lady scares me though. I hope she doesn't come back lookin' for you._

"Me too," Percy said and realized his answer could apply to both remarks. Hera sure scared him a lot more now than she did when she was just sending rogue cows after him.

_So what now?_

"Now, we try again. Back where we left off."

_You know,_ Blackjack said, chewing thoughtfully, _the lady boss has probably gotten way far away. Who knows where she could be?_

Percy was already mounting, steadying himself on Blackjack's back. "Do you really think we have a choice?" he said brutally. "She's so damn stubborn, and she's not going to come back by herself, if she comes back at all, that is. We have to find her. Have to."

Blackjack chuckled and straightened. _All right, all right, don't get your feathers all in a bunch. You're the one who married her; I would've thought you'd figured out how to deal with her by now._

"Yeah, you'd think," Percy muttered as they kicked off into the sky.

…o…

The sun was setting, and Percy was getting more and more frustrated each second he checked how far the golden disk measured up against the horizon. Blackjack would have to stop soon. Visibility wasn't good at night, and plus, he'd been working the poor horse for hours, and unless he wanted a dead animal in the morning, they would have to make camp. He gritted his teeth and ignored the goose bumps forming on his arms from the chill twilight air.

_We've been flying the perimeter forever,_ Blackjack whined. _My wings will be completely useless tomorrow._

"I'm sorry," Percy said. "Just give me another twenty minutes. Please? Until the sun goes down. Then, I promise we'll get some rest."

_Twenty minutes. I'm counting down for you._

Percy looked harder at the forest. _Come on, Annabeth. Where are you? Give me some kind of clue._

Then, something surprising happened. For once, instead of watching idly by as he struggled, the cosmos decided to lend a hand. Dead ahead, he heard a bellow so loud it shook the trees. Only a monster could make a sound like that, and only a monster that was really, really pissed off. Percy figured there was only one person in the state of New York that could make a monster that mad, and she had been skillfully avoiding him all day.

"There," he pointed.

_I'm way ahead of you_, Blackjack said. They dove toward the section of reddish orange trees. There was a skittish whinny. _Definitely Porkpie_, he confirmed. _I'd recognize him a mile away. _ His hooves skimmed the leafy tops of the trees, glided skillfully lower and lower into the foliage without whamming into any branches.

They landed at the base of a massive pine tree where the tip looked like it scraped the purple-pink sky.

Sure enough, Annabeth faced him ten feet away, her eyes darting back and forth, until she saw him. He almost collapsed in relief. She was here. She was safe.

Well, not exactly safe. Between him and her, a huge hulking figure stood in the way. It looked like the thing was wearing a bunch of stitched together pillowcases. An awkward blonde toupee rested lopsided on its head and threatened to slide off at any minute. It was alerted to the rustling behind, whirled around, and roared, single eye blazing. "Another half-blood?" it snarled. Percy took a step backwards.

The Cyclops was the biggest and nastiest he had ever seen, and it was obviously not one of the friendly ones who worked in the forges of Poseidon.

"Percy!" Annabeth cried from behind the monster, scrambling to grab her bronze knife from the ground as the monster was distracted. "I did _not _give you permission to follow me!"

"I would beg to differ," he said, drawing Riptide out of his back pocket, "but I think we have bigger problems at the moment."

The Cyclops lowered its arms and slouched its shoulders slightly. Suddenly, it seemed tamer, smaller even. The hobo-ish pillowcases stopped looking so hobo-ish, more sympathetic. When it spoke, Percy got a nasty jolt, because it didn't talk in the gravelly roll, but in a higher, smoother sound. "Big brother? You come to see me?" it said in a gentle mew.

From across the gulf, Percy saw Annabeth's eyes widen as she mouthed a name that rang loud and clear in his own head.


	8. Chapter 8

**your perfect word was please and mine was always yes: **It seems to be a recurring theme in my life, writing in place of sleep. This chapter happened in various hours of the night (and sometimes during the day). I rewrote it several times. I still think the pacing is a little bit off, but I had a lot of fun writing it. I hope you will have a lot of fun reading it, as you're getting the first bit of real Percy and Annabeth interaction...which is always nice in a Percy/Annabeth story, right? Let me know what you think.

**Important announcement: **So even if you don't read my authorial blah-blah for each chapter, you should read this. In November, I am participating in **NaNoWriMo **(National Novel Writing Month), where participants try to write 50,000 words in 30 days. My project for NaNoWriMo is not going to be The End of You and Me because I'm already 20,000+ words into it. It will be an original YA fantasy. If you are ever curious about what I'm doing in the month of November, my writer's blog is linked on my profile page. Anyway, what this means is that this story will be on hiatus for the duration of the month. However, I will try very hard to make at least one update during November. Try. No promises. Either way, the updating schedule will go back to normal immediately in December, that is, about an update a week, the way it's been. Thanks for hanging with me and understanding.

But the exciting part is, you still have Chapter 8. :-)

* * *

**Chapter 8**

"Tyson?" Percy lowered Riptide and looked intently into the face of the Cyclops. His blonde toupee continued sliding millimeter by millimeter down the left side of his face. His single eye blinked slowly, fringed with long, brown lashes. Percy hadn't seen Tyson in at least two years. Tyson had joined the undersea forges and was relocated to just offshore of Washington State, across the country. The only real method of communication was through Iris-message, and those had poor connections when the recipient was underwater. The Jackson family messaged him on holidays. Cassie knew she had an Uncle Ty, but Percy and Annabeth didn't really want to explain why her uncle had one eye right smack in the middle of his forehead. It was much easier to acquaint Cassie to the very mortal Chase side of the family.

But even so, Percy couldn't imagine that Tyson had gotten such a big growth spurt. He was pretty runty as Cyclopes went.

The maybe-Tyson Cyclops nodded.

"You look like you've just trudged through a garbage dump and then ran into someone's hanging laundry. What happened?" Percy hedged, waiting to see how the reaction fit.

Maybe-Tyson crinkled his brow. "Something happened? I didn't run through a garbage dump," he said.

Percy laughed, the knot that he didn't even know he had loosening in his chest. "Hey, buddy. I haven't seen you in forever. What brings you to New York?"

Blackjack snuffled softly behind him. _He smells funny, boss. Weird, like he just crawled up out of the sea._

Tyson turned toward Blackjack, his eyes lighting up. "Horsie! Horsie with wings!" He tottered over, but the pegasus shied away, ruffling up its wings and nostrils flaring. _Nuh uh, _he said. _Not me, don't let him get near me. Look at those arms. He'll crush my bones to pixie dust. Grown up Cyclopes. Hmph. _

Looking like he just missed the ice cream truck of his life, Tyson dropped his arms. His toupee drooped further. He looked severely in need of a hug. Percy took a step toward him, but as he did, he caught Annabeth caught his eye. She was rummaging in her backpack (_where did she get a backpack?_), whipped out her Yankee's cap and jammed in on her head. In a shimmer, she vanished.

Percy stopped. "Hey. Exactly what do you think you're doing?" he said to thin air.

A force like a bulldozer shoved him over and he landed at the trunk of a tree, jarred and rubbing his hip where he landed. Not that it hurt, but he surely didn't appreciate it. "What the hell was that?"

The perpetrator melted back into visibility, clutching her cap in one hand and a sharp bronze knife in the other, right in front of Tyson. She lunged at him, but he jumped back, nimble for his size. The pillowcases billowed in the wind angrily.

Percy couldn't believe her gall. "You can't just go around trying to stab people all the time! You know, violence isn't the answer for whatever deep-seated problem you're harboring. If you want to stab someone, I'm right here."

She collected herself. "Percy, as tempting as that offer is, I'm not crazy."

"Really? Because you're putting on a pretty good show, I'd have to say."

Tyson retreated, rubbing his eyes and wiping away marble-sized tears.

She jabbed a finger at the shrinking figure. "That's not Tyson. Look at him! He doesn't look like Tyson at all. Just because he sounds exactly like your brother, doesn't mean he is. The voices, Percy. Don't you remember?"

_The voices?_ It seemed like forever ago that he had to deal with a Cyclops who wasn't friendly, but then…then, in the Sea of Monsters, there was the monster of monsters. Polyphemus? Yes, that was it. He stood up.

"And I would know about Cyclops voices," Annabeth said.

Of course. When she was seven, she had been trapped in a Cyclops lair, and the horrible thing had imitated her father. Of course she would know. "But how can you be sure?"

"Like this." She darted toward the Cyclops, who saw her coming and turned to face her. But at the last moment, she feinted, daintily skipped behind him and the tip of her dagger caught on the collar—if you could designate a collar to the pillowcase shirt—and the cloth jerked and ripped right open. It fluttered in tatters to the ground. "Look!" she yelled over the Cyclops' furious cry. "Look at his back."

The wide, tan back had unmarred leathery skin. No scars, nothing. And one thing Percy wouldn't forget was the clump of scars shaped like a spider's web on Tyson's back, a result of a severe Sphinx attack. They were scars he would carry forever. People didn't change that much in a span of two years.

The Cyclops, really angry now, brought a palm down on Annabeth's head, but she dropped and rolled out of the way. The Yankees' cap, however, slipped loose from her grasp and dropped into a pile of leaves at the feet of the monster. The monster stepped on it, leering. "I have the magic hat, the golden girlie's magic hat," he chanted in a sing-song voice.

Percy uncapped Riptide, blood singing in his veins for being fooled by such a predictable, amateurish trick. "And I have the sword that's going to cut it right out of your hands."

"Half-blood, half-blood, come and get me if you can!" the monster tittered in a manner eerily reminiscent of the gingerbread man. He scrambled out of the way, through trees, in the underbrush, and over gnarled vines, waving the cap as if it were some kind of trophy. Percy raced after him, temples pulsing, while trying to avoid getting smacked in the face by flying branches. Annabeth had fallen behind, and he didn't have time to look where she was. The tightness of the forest made maneuvering difficult. He could've sworn this had been easier ten years ago. Now, he just felt like a big, lumbering thing, trying to fit into a doll's playhouse. The Cyclops didn't seem to having a problem. He was getting away, the echoes of his low, huffing laughter trailing behind him like smoke.

"Turn around and face me!"

"Can't catch me, can't catch me!"

The dimming daylight cast strange shadows in the forest, making it hard to distinguish what was an obstacle and what wasn't. Percy gritted his teeth and stopped concentrating on what path to take. He charged straight like a bull through everything—pine needles scraped against his skin, but they wouldn't leave a mark—toward the Cyclops. He was catching up. He could see blue and white of the cap. Within arm's reach, he could snatch it, if he just stretched far enough. His fingers tickled the air, straining, straining—

The Cyclops shot a quick glance backward and came to a screeching halt, digging his feet into the moist soil.

Percy crashed headlong into the monster, his fingers crunching into the monster's backside and fell backward. It took him a split second to adjust his eyes to the whiplash, and for his head to stop spinning. But in that tiny pause, the Cyclops towered over him and one fist was coming down for a numbing blow. He didn't even have time to move.

A hoof came out of nowhere and knocked into the side of the Cyclops' head, followed by a bronze blade to the neck. Percy saw his stupid smile freeze into place as he disintegrated into dust.

"What in the—" he murmured, still feeling like his brain was bouncing around inside his skull.

Annabeth slipped off the pegasus and shook the dirt off of her cap. "There you go," she said simply. "Just what did you come here to do, exactly? Save the damsel in distress?"

So it was back to that again, he supposed as the stars faded out of his eyes. He didn't like the snark in her tone. Rubbing his head and getting back on his feet, he groused, "You're the most sarcastic damsel in distress _I've_ ever met." He caught a glimmer of a smile in her eyes, before she blinked it away, sheathing her knife.

"Don't I get a thank you or anything?" she asked. "You were about to get your brains smacked out."

"I was fine! It was all under control."

She scoffed and turned her back on him to examine the pile of dust. "Yeah, right." She let a fine trickle fall through her fingers. "It was all under control too when you were about to let yourself get a nice big Cyclops hug, right before he squished you to bits. I'm sure it was all a part of your master plan."

The evening light had faded to a soft purple, and Percy marveled at how the light outlined her body. The anger he had for her running off in the morning dissipated in an instant. He was just glad to see her again. She had a way of making him forget things like that. "Thanks. For helping."

When she turned her face to him, she looked tired. "You're welcome. As always." She smiled for real this time, although, it was a little lacking. It was a smile all the same, and was startled by how much he missed the sight of it. "So you owe me. What else is new? You know, one day, I mean to collect on that."

"Really."

"Yeah, really. Don't give me that look. I will. And you better promise that you'll make good on it," she warned.

"We'll see," he said.

An owl hooted in the distance, and for some reason, that brought more pressing matters to the forefront of the conversation. Blackjack nudged at Percy's side.

"I know, buddy. We should probably get to town and find a hotel or something."

_Uh,_ Blackjack objected, _no, we shouldn't. These old wings are about to break off. I'm not the young thing I used to be. Come on, what's wrong with spending a night out here? __It's nice. __It's not that cold. You can rough it for a couple of hours, can't you? _

"Um…" Percy wasn't sure he liked the idea of "roughing it." He was almost positive the last time he'd slept outside was when he was in his teens. The novelty of camping had kind of worn off when he was twelve and trying to find his way to the underworld, forced to sleep up against a tree. And that kind of thing worked when you were young, but once you hit the age of twenty-five or so, leaning up against anything other than a pillow left a horrible crick in your neck and twist in your temper in the morning.

But Blackjack charged ahead without pause. _Good, it's settled. I'm going to get some shuteye, if you don't mind me. See you in the morning, boss._

Annabeth made a tiny cough as Blackjack clopped off to one side. "I guess that's a 'no' for going anywhere near a bed, huh?"

…o…

The fire crackled in bright spurts as flames of heat reached out along the clearing. Percy watched the wisp of smoke flutter into the blue-black sky. To be honest, he was rather impressed that they had managed to start a fire to begin with, since they hadn't needed to do it by hand in ages. That's what matches were for, but they hadn't thought of that when they slinked out of his apartment in the dead of night. Of course, he gave a good amount of the credit to Annabeth, who had been doing this kind of thing since she was seven. It was one of those things that you didn't forget how to do, like tying your shoes. He leaned forward. "Smoky the Bear would be really disappointed in us. Let's hope we don't set New York State on fire."

Annabeth poked at the fire, and the coals momentarily flared a hotter red. "That's a bit rich, don't you think? Coming from the boy who blew a hole into the St. Louis arch? I think you've done worse." She didn't even look at him, and in the shadows, he couldn't see her expression, but he imagined it was mocking.

"Not me," he corrected. "The Chihuahua-Chimera. _I_ can't spout fire out of my mouth."

"You couldn't identify that ugly dog as a Chimera then, either. You're just not very good at figuring out what's what, I suppose." She was teasing him.

"Because you were so quick in pointing it out. I seem to remember that you kept pretty quiet in the elevator on the way up," he said.

She dragged a dead log from one side, brushed off the dirt, and sat down on it. "I was testing you, obviously. Seeing if you were savior-of-the-world material." She tapped a finger against her temple. "Planning, you see? If you weren't right, I would've dropped you on the side of the road like a rock."

"So," he said, mulling over words. "Did I pass?"

"Pass what?"

"The savior-of-the-world test."

She appeared to consider it, and he briefly found himself thinking that if he hadn't been madly in love with her since the moment he met her—even if he hadn't realized it at the time—he probably would've thought her the most stuck-up twelve-year-old girl ever. Even worse than the cheerleaders at school, because all they did was titter at him as he walked by. Annabeth wasn't afraid of saying whatever she thought to his face.

"Yes," she said finally. "You passed. But not then. I'd say you passed at the end of the summer. You were pretty okay for a son of Poseidon."

"Gee, thanks," he said in mock gratitude. "That's the compliment of the century."

"I try."

Sitting there, warming their hands and feet by the fire, everything seemed so easy. He didn't want to say anything to disturb it. He wanted to wrap this moment around him and live in it forever, retrieve it on cold nights when he missed her desperately and had to unplug his phone so he wouldn't randomly call her at two in the morning. If there was one thing he had learned about Annabeth in living with her for eight years, it was that she _did not_ tolerate being woken up in the middle of the night for anything less than life-threatening reasons. She could be in the best of moods when she settled down for the night, but woe to the one who pulled her out of her beauty sleep. That was really unleashing the demon within.

He paused to consider how thoroughly he knew her, in and out, yet she managed to surprise him all the same. Was it just something about every couple? Or was it specific to her? He had to admit, she was different. She had her own way of doing everything.

Annabeth looked dreamy, mesmerized by the fire. "What are you thinking about?" she asked him. The light illuminated her face, smoothing it out fine lines.

"I was thinking about how impressive you were today for not getting made into monster mash. When was the last time used that knife?"

She grinned and sat up. "I was pretty impressive, wasn't I?"

"I think I can see your head swelling up like a balloon."

"Oh, shut it. What, did you think I'd gone soft in all these years? I've still got it," she said, snapping her fingers. She rested her chin on her palms. "Don't you forget it, either."

"I won't," he told her. _She was still so good at everything,_ he remembered thinking this morning. For some reason, even when they were younger, it seemed like Annabeth was always the older one, the one who knew better, the mature one. He was always stumbling behind her, trying to keep up, and listen to what she had to say. Until, of course, it became time for him to be the hero. He suspected that it must've been hard for her. She liked being in control. The thing that scared her the most was not having a plan, not knowing exactly what was going to come next. Was she scared now? Waiting for tomorrow was the worst. He wished he could ask her, but he didn't know if they could ask things like that of each other anymore. Could they? Should he try?

He didn't. Instead, he said, "So I guess this means you are okay we having me along for the ride now?"

She shifted a little. "Not _okay,_ per se, but I don't see any way out of it, so I guess if that means 'okay,' then yeah."

Her response was not very encouraging. "Try to sound a bit more enthusiastic about me being here, will you? I know I'm encroaching on your independent, do-it-myself, gung ho attitude, but I remember there used to be a time when being with me wasn't so bad."

He heard her sucking in a deep breath. "Percy Jackson!"

"What? What? Where's the fire?"

"You are such an idiot, sometimes," she said, stomping her foot, but since the ground was soft and moist, it didn't make much of a point.

"So you tell me on a daily basis. What's the reason this time?"

"I don't _not_ want to be around you. It's just that you attract goddesses like crazy and it's going to be crazy hard to do anything without one of them throwing themselves in front of you like a suicidal deer."

He looked at her. "Like a suicidal deer?"

"You know what I mean, Seaweed Brain!"

His lips twitched.

Annabeth crossed her arms. "What?"

"Nothing. It's just that…never mind." She hadn't used that silly nickname in years. It was something he thought they had outgrown. But he decided that he could get used to hearing it again. "You should know," he told her, "that you are the reason I got stuck in Europe on a date with Hera, so you should probably appreciate the fact that I chased you halfway across the world."

She furrowed her brows, like she didn't believe him. "Wait, hold on. Did you just say 'date with Hera?'"

"Damn straight. It was not the greatest experience of my life, let me tell you. But don't worry. She dumped me after I told her I wasn't going to name her the most beautiful."

"Well, it's reassuring to know that you're not cheating on me with Hera. Demeter, maybe. Hera, though? I'd seriously question your taste in women."

"Oh, Demeter definitely not," he said, wrinkling his nose. "Seeing as I don't have an obsession with grains, I don't think we'd be very compatible."

Annabeth was laughing now. She clapped her hands. "I've found the solution to all of our problems. All you have to do is auction off a date and whoever is the least obnoxious or, you know, doesn't blow you to bits, will be the winner of the apple. What do you think?"

"I think it's brilliant. A plan worthy of Athena." He grinned at her. Across the fire pit, Annabeth's eyes seemed to gather the firelight and glow. For a few seconds, he just stared at her, wondering if she knew that she outpaced all of the goddesses. If he was going to give the apple to anyone, it would be her.

She looked away first. "Anyway, I thought it was a good idea."

"It is," he said. "Besides the minor detail that it would require me going on tons of dates with goddesses, really temperamental goddesses, it's a great idea."

She smiled at him again, but he thought it was a little more guarded this time. Why was she so afraid of being herself? Or perhaps, she was afraid of him? But why? Something in the air had changed, churned upon itself, and floated away. Annabeth was busily tending the fire, studying the coals as if her life depended on it. He felt sad as he watched her. It was as if she was so very far away, and he couldn't ever catch up. She had moved herself away, and he only wanted to follow her. But she wouldn't let him.

And then it made him angry. Why was he always chasing her? What had he done to make her run away anyway? Like an obnoxious itch that was just out of reach, he thought of the divorce papers still lying on the floor—unless the police had bothered to pick them up and peg it as evidence of family breakdown—waiting for his signature. Did she still want it? At the moment, he couldn't quite recall why she had filed for divorce to begin with. It was all kind of a miserable blur.

September fifth—the day she had marched through the door, more serious than he had ever seen her, and formally presented the papers in a manila envelope stamped "confidential"—as if he were going to show them to anyone. She proffered the envelope with both hands; that seemed important at the time. It was too stilted. He had taken the envelope and stupidly asked her what was inside. Gods, he wanted to kick himself for saying that.

"We have to get a divorce," she said.

_We have to_, instead of _I want one_, the way a normal person would say it. The way she said it made it seem inevitable, like she really didn't want to get one, but it was destiny. They couldn't escape it. Could they?

He left the next day, but even then, when she shut the door with barely as much as a goodbye—they hated saying goodbyes—he could hear her crying from the crack under the door. The sound of it made him want to barge through the door and shake some sense into her, tell her that they _didn't_ have to get a divorce at all, and kiss the lights out of her until she forgot the whole damn thing. He had dropped his suitcases and knocked. "Annabeth?"

There had been some shuffling, and the sobs stopped immediately. "Leave me alone," she whispered.

And he had left.

The fire flickered a little bit, faded to a glowing red. She looked up at him from her squatting position. "Do you think we should call it a night then? It's been…quite a day."

He found that, frustratingly, he couldn't even be mad at her. Not right now. He had to be better about this. She couldn't keep getting away with it, even if she didn't know about it. "Yeah," he said, yawning. "Might as well. We should probably get up early tomorrow. By the way," he added as an afterthought, "don't run off in the middle of the night. Please."

She gave him a dry look. "Ha-ha. I suppose I won't. No promises, though. I'm exceedingly good at ditching people."

"So I've discovered," he murmured as he directed a spout of water at the dying flames. They sputtered out with a hiss, and the last plume of smoke swirled up. He watched her back as she slipped into the forest—decided that he was tired of seeing her walk away. "Hey!" he called out.

Annabeth half-turned, confused. "What?"

He paused, not sure what he was trying to do or what he was going to say. There were a million things, but it was late and right now—"Good night, Wise Girl."

She eased into a smile. "See you tomorrow."

As he settled down, his heart was considerably lighter, although he didn't know why. Things could be better, he thought, as he lay looking up at the infinite spread of stars, so much brighter than in the city. _Things could be better._


End file.
